


Feelings Not Included

by teicakes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (mostly background stuff don't worry no ABO society building/angst), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bottom Shiro (Voltron), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Omega Shiro (Voltron), Porn with Feelings, Sex Toys, Shameless Smut, Sharing a Bed, Shirocest, Slow Burn, post s6 divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-08-10 15:10:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 61,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20137492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teicakes/pseuds/teicakes
Summary: Shiro’s not unfamiliar with “marital aids”. He’s a full-blooded Omega, he knows his way around an adult toy store… or at least, he thought he did. When he’d walked out the space mall he’d thought he’d gotten a simple toy to help him through his next heat, but this is far beyond your usual vibrator. No… now Shiro has a perfect clone of himself, one all too eager and willing to help him with all types of bedroom affairs. One who’s surprisingly sweet and loving, leaving him with the question of when — not if — he’ll take up Kuron’s offers.Or... Shiro buys what he thinks is a vibrator but it turns out it's the biggest puppy of a grow-your-own-boyfriend





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my patented writing style, this was planned as a 15k PWP fest, and then I caught feelings. 
> 
> And then caught some more. 
> 
> And then ended up writing 50k about Shiro accidentally activating a clone of himself, growing protective of him, and ultimately falling for him. All while he tries to hide the fact that he's got a sex/companionship AI that's a carbon copy of him from the rest of the Altas. 
> 
> Kuron's just a soft boy who likes cuddles and learning about the universe. And Shiro's a sweaty disaster wrestling with how cute he is. I'll be posting in chunks of chapters of 2-3 at a time, with the full fic up and out within the week (:

Shiro stares at the small item lying on his sheets and can’t help but wonder if he got duped.

As an Omega, and a painfully single one at that, he’s always been adventurous in the realm of toys. Silicon, plastic, glass, metal, he’s tried them all, in a variety of shapes, sizes and speeds. Wandering into an alien sex shop didn’t even phase him that much, aside from the few models sitting behind the back counter that made even his kinkiest of Bad Dragon toys look tame. If he’d had more money and less shame, he probably would have walked out with the massive mold of a half dozen tentacle cocks, but he was shopping in the few hours they had before taking off once again in the Atlas, and the chances of being caught dildo-handed were infinitely higher with a crew of their size than when it had just been the seven of them aboard the castle ship. 

So... he’d let the saleswoman talk him through a variety of smaller, more subtle packages. They’d skimmed over the usual entry level things pretty fast, little egg vibrators and standard human sized cocks. They’d spent a bit of time poised over the knotted and ridged toys, but as soon as she’d asked him for the reason behind his purchase, she’d immediately beckoned him to the back of the store. 

“This,” she said, grinning as she held out the smooth, mysterious package, “would be perfect for you. It’s built especially for individuals looking for that extra little companionship through those lonely nights.”

Maybe it was her promises that his satisfaction would be guaranteed, maybe it was her comforting him that no matter what partner he longed for when alone, the toy could provide. Or maybe it was the fact he only had ten minutes left before takeoff, but he bought it. It hadn’t been cheap either, clearing him out completely even though she gave him a first timer’s discount. 

Now though, looking at the toy out of its packaging in the privacy of his own room, he can’t help but feel like she’d unloaded something nobody wanted onto him. It’s barely the size of his own dick, grey and unassuming like a pill taken on doctor’s orders. Not a knot or ridge or knob to be seen. Turning it over in his hands he doesn’t find anything else out of the ordinary on it. Not even a switch or compartment for batteries. The box doesn’t have anything else either, just a sheet of instructions written in some alien language he can’t even begin to guess the meaning behind. The only thing he knows about it is its name, and that was just because it had rung up in galactic common when he’d bought it. 

On the whole, Shiro’s unimpressed with his purchase. But then again, he’s been surprised before. Half of his toy box was things he’d only decided to buy on a whim, and in the end he’d enjoyed more of them than he thought he would. Of all his drunk or horny late night purchases, he’d only ever regretted three of them, and there were a lot. 

Shiro checks the clock on his bedside and weighs his options. It’s late enough that no one should bother him now, and so long as he keeps the lights low and his voice down anyone coming by will think he’s gone to sleep. He’s already itching to get something inside him, heat still over a week away, but the prospect of a new toy, no matter how bland, is enough to get him in the mood. He strips in short order, clothes discarded on his chair, and settles into bed with the toy. 

It’s clearly penetrative, that much he can tell, if only by lack of any sort of hole or slot for his dick to slide into. That’s good… he can already feel that little twang of need between his hips, that craving for an Alpha’s cock locked and loaded inside him. He’s got lube on his fingers in a matter of minutes, slick and shining like his entrance, and with a groan of anticipation he slides one inside himself. 

He’s always been an easy lay, body opening readily to whatever offers itself up to his hole. One finger already isn’t enough, barely a hint of stretch, so he adds a second without fanfare, letting his voice slip out as he feels the first hints of resistance at his rim.  _ God… _ he loves this, loves the feeling of his body working itself open, waiting for what’s to come. He’s already fantasizing about what that toy might do, how it’ll pound him into the sheets and leave him gasping for air. How it’ll split him open, have him begging to be bred, siding against his slick walls as he chases his climax like a man possessed. Maybe it reacts to heat… or to movement, and that was what the lady was talking about. It giving it to him as good as he gave… Shiro was ready for that, something matching his intensity without effort, without the flicking of switches or readjustments on the mattress. 

Already his mind was going wild with possibilities, and he hadn’t even used it. 

Shiro stuffs a third finger into himself, curling and digging his fingertips into his walls to feel every last delicious degree of friction. Already he can feel his cock approaching full mast, drooling against his leg as he continues to stuff his fingers in to the knuckle. Whatever it was, it was supposed to be good, and hey… if it wasn’t, he had a literal treasure trove of follow-ups to make up for it. 

He tugs his fingers out with wet pop, hole aching and wanting for more. His fingers scrabble across the sheets, seeking out the sleek form of the toy and bringing it to his groin. Now that it’s in his palm and covered in a mix of lube and his own juices, he catches the underlying texture of it, smooth with just a hint of catch. It reminds him of some of his most lifelike toys, cast to feel just like an Alpha’s cock on his insides. Already he’s more excited. He brings it between his thighs and squeezes, letting it press up against his crack and nose at the base of his cock, smearing slick up and down his taint as he grinds in to the feeling of it. If he rocks just so, he can catch himself from back to front, the rear end just nudging his asshole as the front butts against his cock and makes it bobble. Heat seems to coarse through it, and before long it’s as warm as the heat pooling in his belly, ready and willing as any cock. 

“God… just get in me already,” he moans, spreading his legs just enough for it to slide down back onto the sheets, shining with slick. His hole is ready, muscles twitching in anticipation as he takes the toy in hand and guides it towards it, letting the tip of the thick, pill-like body press against his entrance. 

It’s better than fingers, he’ll give it that much as his back arches and his shoulders dig in to the mattress. It spreads him well too, just the barest tapering at it’s tip before the full girth hits him, and then after that it’s nothing but the maddening slow slide of first penetration. He knows he needs to go slow, adjust to the feeling of it in him, but he’s just so  _ empty _ and it’s so thick and warm, inching it’s way in to fill the gaps inside of him. He manages to hold his instincts off, move it slow and steady into himself until he reaches the halfway point, but by then he’s thinking more with what’s between his legs than between his head and the time for slow beginnings is over. With a grunt and the palm of his hand, he shoves the entire thing inside himself. 

And dang… it hits the spot. Shiro lays on the bed, panting for a second as he gets used to the full feeling of the toy inside himself. It thrums inside him to the pounding of his heart, still giving off that same lifelike heat he knows isn’t his own. It sits nicely in the cradle of his hips, surprisingly heavier than he’d first thought, but in a good way, one that let it dig in against his walls as his hips begin to rock. And  _ oh god…  _ when he does… Shiro’s eyes flutter shut. He can feel the weight inside it moving, rolling back and forth like a second entity, the full weight of the toy hitting the end a second after it’s outer body does. A first and second fuck, and fuck if he isn't’ down with it.

Shiro’s hips move faster and faster as he works the toy inside him, head back, feet planted, ass in the air as he bucks into the feeling. It slides back and forth inside of him, end to end in his passage. With every lowering of his hips he can feel it kiss his entrance, every rise he feels it slip even deeper, the rolling weight inside of it slamming it further each way and making his head spin. Through hazy eyes he catches sight of himself in the mirror, legs splayed, cock flopping against his stomach as he works himself towards orgasm. He swears he can just catch the silver tip of it crowning out of him as he shifts low, and then with a groan and a rise it’s gone, sliding back inside of him and hammering into that spot that makes him see stars. 

Yeah, he’s definitely happy with it. 

He changes his movements up, hips circling high, letting the full weight of it push deeper into him, stirring up his furthest insides. A hand jumps to his belly as he does, and the feeling of it rolling around beneath his fingers, right below his navel is enough to have him moaning into open air.  _ God… it’s so good and hot and perfect _ , always that extra little edge of unpredictability that has him keening with longing that it’ll hit him just right. He’s getting close, orgasm building just behind where it rocks inside of him. 

Just a bit more… he needs a little bit more… needs that full feeling of an Alpha slamming inside him, shaping his insides to the contours of their throbbing member. He angles low, letting the toy slide right back to his entrance and forcing himself to stay tight to keep it inside. He can almost imagine it now, that Alpha, sitting on the bed, just letting Shiro work himself up and down their cock, waiting… waiting for their Omega to reach the breaking point and beg to be taken. Of how they’d bend him over in two, ankles by his ears, grinding their building knot into the curve of his ass and fucking him with just the tip until he’s hiccuping with pleas, begging them to knot him for all he’s worth. Threatening to pull out until he succumbs to their dirty talk, the words  _ breed me _ falling from his lips as tears form in the corners of his eyes in need. 

And then the sweet release of that knot sealing itself inside of him, of his body coming around it. Of the rush of them pumping their load deep inside him, growling praises and raining licks and kisses over his face and neck as he finds his release, satisfaction pooling in his belly like his Alpha’s seed. That picture, that fantasy of being owned so completely has him stumbling over the brink, passage contracting, Omega cock spurting across his chest as he comes with a cry. The toy inside him jumps, rocking erratically as his hips falter and shake and fall back into the mattress, still jerking back and forth as he rides it out in oversensitive bliss. 

He’s not sure if its his imagination or reality, but he swears the toy seems to swell inside him in time to his climax. Almost like a real knot, coming just as he needs it, willing his Omega body to milk it for all it’s worth. The weight of the toy is heavier now, pushing his hips deeper into the mattress in as the boneless satisfaction kicks in and Shiro settles into the sheets, still rocking himself through the last trails of orgasm. 

Actually… he cants his hips higher. It  _ does _ feel bigger. 

It no longer slides inside him with the same ease, and there’s the same stretch he gets from his knotting and inflating toys. That in itself isn’t cause for alarm, but then again, he’s not exactly sure when it will stop. The more he notices it, the bigger it seems to feel, until there’s a tightness in his walls he can’t ignore. He feels himself sink lower into the mattress, lower than he ever would on his own, and that snaps him out of it. 

Whatever the toy was, it was still growing.  _ Not good… not good _ … he has no idea what the specs are on this thing, how big it can get. _ Heck… _ he hadn’t even read the instructions manual, a  _ stupid fucking decision _ he recognizes now.

Shiro sits up, the weight of the toy settling low in the cradle of his hips. There was a chance it just responded to whatever fantasies were going on in his head, but the idea of just sitting here thinking about it shrinking around to normal size wasn’t something he was willing to risk. He needed it out, and he needed it out now.

_ “Fuck, _ ” he groans, trying to work the toy lower inside himself. It’s like the entire thing is a knot, swollen inside him, and it’s slow going. He was so stupid to have stuck it in without even considering how he’d get it out, but then again, he hadn’t expected it to get bigger either. 

Every centimeter he pushes it inside himself feels like a mile, the toy dragging over every last surface inside himself. Nothing was safe from the hot, velvety sides of the toy, rippling over his walls like a massive tongue. Every push, every contraction of his insides trying to squeeze it out of himself had him keening, every last nerve between his legs thrumming with contact. It feels so good, and yet he knows it needs to end soon  _ or else. _

A sheen of sweat forms on his body as the toy finally,  _ finally  _ begins to crown. It’s so thick now, his hole struggling to accommodate it all as the first few millimeters slide from him. God… it really is the size of a full knot, something he was meant to take the  _ other _ way, and fighting against it, pushing it out has his body all sorts of confused. The ring of his entrance strains, battling with itself over whether to let it out or have it sink back inside where it swears it belongs. It’s a maddening battle, one that has Shiro pushing one inch and then losing half to the instincts he’s fighting, the toy sinking back inside before he snaps back into reality. Even with the rising bubble of panic in his gut he can’t deny how good this feels, how spread out he is, wet and dripping as he forces more and more of it from him. 

It gives a sudden lurch, weight of it shifting yet again, and Shiro almost loses everything, the toy rocking back dangerously close to sit fully inside him once again, but he catches himself at the last minute. He’s painfully hard again, body sweaty and exhausted, but he continues on, pushing bit by bit until it reaches the tipping point. 

The toy falls out of him with a wet sound and suddenly Shiro is empty and gasping. His head falls back into the sheets for a second at the sudden loss of warmth. He can feel his hole closing around nothing, grasping for what its lost, and it takes all of his remaining strength to sit up and inspect the thing that’d caused him so much trouble. 

Propped up on his elbows, Shiro’s jaw drops at the sight of the thing between his spread legs. It’s the size of a loaf of bread. That’s… that can’t be right. There was no way that had fit inside himself. He has to be hallucinating. It has to be early heat hormones… Shiro blinks, trying to clear the remain fog of arousal from his brain. 

When he looks again, a squeak of disbelief leaves him. 

It’s even  _ bigger. _

It’s  _ growing _ . 

Shiro’s rooted to the spot, dumbfounded as he watches the silver shape swell between his thighs. It just keeps growing… bigger and bigger and bigger until his knees are being nudged apart. It’s getting taller too, a shadow falling over his stomach as it rises up in front of him like some sight gag of an erection. That… that had been  _ in him _ . That thing had fit in him, and now, like one of those dollar store grow toys it was eight times it size, swelling right before his very eyes. 

A line forms in the surface, and then another, and another, the perfect cylinder now marred with marks going up, down, sideways… gashes deep and shallow alike. Some parts sink in, some swell out, until recognizable shapes start to form. _Far_ _too recognizable_... It was like watching those modeling clay videos on fast forward, something coming from nothing in the blink of an eye. Shiro crawls backwards across his sheets, back pressing up against the wall as colour begins to bloom across the surface of the toy. Some parts pink, others white, even a few places where shadows deepened into deepest browns and blacks. They spread like cream in coffee, swirling across the surface until finally settling in place.

It’s still so warm… so lifelike, where it rubs against his bare thighs. Shiro’s at a loss for words, he’s at a loss for  _ anything,  _ unable to do anything other than stare at what’s just materialized on his bed in front of him. 

Everything is still for a moment, one silent, terrifying moment, before the toy jerks to life once again. 

But… it didn’t look like a toy anymore. It wasn’t the same little pill shaped thing Shiro had pulled out of the box. It wasn’t even the massive weight he’d pushed out of himself.

No…

Sitting there, Shiro’s legs spread over both of it’s knees, was a perfect replica of himself. Every muscle… every scar matches, even the birthmark under his right collar bone. It’s him, in the flesh… except it’s space silicon or god knows what, and Shiro  _ knows _ this isn’t it. The saleswoman had promised a partner for lonely nights. Something that would look after his needs no matter what, know his body as intimately as he knew it himself…

He hadn’t expected it to be so literal.

It’s eyes open, and fear shoots straight up Shiro’s spine as those steel grey eyes slowly hone in on him. The replica smiles sweetly, hands rubbing up and down Shiro’s thighs. He can’t help but notice how much it feels like real flesh and blood, how much his Omega instincts soak in another’s touch, even if every other fibre of him was hyperventilating over the fact it had been an inanimate egg just moments ago.

The duplicate leans forwards, arms loosely caging Shiro beneath it. Fuck… it looked so alive, like looking in to a mirror of himself, except this one was giving him bedroom eyes that would make even the most prudish of Betas start undressing. It gazes down at him, looking at him like he’s the most amazing thing it’s ever seen, and then it speaks, it’s voice so familiar and yet so alien coming from lips that aren’t his own.

“Hey there. I’m your Kuron… how can I please you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always read instructions my thudes

Shiro fights back the urge to scream as the doppelganger leans over him, its eyes raking up and down his bare body. This… this wasn’t happening… he had to be hallucinating, or passed out, or jacked into some VR reality by the thing he’d shoved in his ass. It… stuff like this wasn’t possible. Weird alien plastic didn’t just turn into another human, least of all something like him, that looked  _ just  _ like him,  _ talked _ like him… Shiro swallows as it strokes a piece of his fringe back. It’s fingers are so soft and warm, brow wrinkling  _ exactly _ how his own did when he stared at himself in the mirror each morning. He swears he can feel a pulse from the thumb that trails down the contour of his face, entirely separate from the pounding of his own heart. 

He makes to sit up, and the sudden movement has the clone’s eyes going wide, his lips parting, hands going to Shiro’s sides. 

“Are you… here, let me,” it says, rushing to steady Shiro. It’s grip is firm on his hip and under his armpit, and for a second the thought of yelling for help flashes through Shiro’s head again. But… but that would mean someone walking in on this…  _ seeing _ this,  _ explaining _ this, and he bites his tongue. It doesn’t stop his body from tensing up as the clone helps sit him against the wall, staring at it as it’s hands hover over the entirety of his torso. 

It’s still very much between his legs, right in his space, and he swears his knees will hit its stomach if he tries to close them. It’s so unsettling, in that it  _ doesn’t _ look like it belongs in the uncanny valley. It doesn’t look like a robot, it doesn’t look like a mask on a face or a hologram in front of him. It  _ is  _ him, right down to the pores on his nose and the few stray hairs that never sit right in his brows. It’s the little mark on his neck from when he’d let his highschool boyfriend false claim him, never fully gone away. It… it even…

Shiro gulps. 

It even has the same small mole at the very end of his happy trail, just bare centimeters above--

Well.

_ That  _ was different. 

As an Omega, Shiro didn’t particularly care about the size of his dick. Sure, it was big enough that if he ended up with another Omega he could satisfy them as well as any Beta, but for his own pleasure, well… an extra few inches didn’t change how it felt to jerk off in his hand or into a toy. His  _ duplicate though _ … there was no ignoring it’s cock now that he’d seen it, noticeably thicker and longer than his own rapidly flagging erection. He couldn’t stop himself from staring at it, jaw flapping, lost for words. He… he had to be imagining it, but he swore he saw the ridges along the base of an uninflated knot, ready for when the time came. 

The clone’s own eyes trailed down Shiro’s body, stopping even lower than Shiro’s had. It’s hands return to Shiro’s knees, spreading him wider, exposing his still stretched hole. Thumbs circle the skin beside his kneecaps, it’s eyes locked on where Shiro’s ass still shines with slick. 

“Should I help you continue?” 

“Wh-what?” Shiro’s still out of it, still reeling over the fact that moments ago it had just been him and an inanimate pill and now it was sitting across from him asking if he wanted to fuck it, acting like this wasn’t the  _ weirdest fucking thing ever _ . 

It doesn’t move further, but the intent is clear. It’s cock twitches against its leg, slowly swelling with arousal as it spreads him more, until Shiro really feels open and at it’s mercy.  _ Fuck _ , and he was open. Even with the size of it’s dick, it’d be nothing compared to what this… clone?…  _ thing _ ? had been when he’d had it inside him before. It’s hands move, further up his body, away from both their hips to trace his waist, running soothing hands up and down his sides. “You’re still… you need to finish again, you look like you need to. I can do it. It’ll be so much better in this form, I can look after you better like this than before, well…” It pets Shiro’s hip, nose crinkled in amusement. “I don’t think that’s quite the intended way to activate, but I don’t have any complaints. So, shall we?”

Shiro’s hips are tugged down a bit, and he feels his thighs slide higher on the clone’s own. Close enough that now he can see it’s dick where it stands, hovering overhead of his own at half-mast. 

That’s enough to snap him out of it. 

“No, no no nonononoo!” He squirms, clawing his way further up the bed and away from… him?… it? until he feels his shoulders bump another wall. “No… you’re not… we’re…”

It stares at him, confusion clear as day on  his  its face, still facing where he’d just been. 

“Why… why not?” it asks, and the little whine in how its voice creeps up at the end sends a small pang through Shiro. It sounds… almost hurt. It shuffles on the bed to face him, on its hands and knees, and for the first time Shiro realizes it has two fully human arms, the right still continuing down from where scar tissue covers the join just below his shoulder. To Shiro’s relief, it doesn’t crawl any closer, simply sitting in the middle of his bed staring. 

“Is it… are you embarrassed about the activation? Or did it scare you? I made sure to hold off until it was safe, it won’t happen again now. Or…” it glances down at its own dick, now half-slumped over, and back to Shiro. “Is this not what you were hoping for?”

“I…” Shiro stammers, but any further words are cut off as the clone shifts positions and his cock swells before Shiro’s eyes, growing bigger by the second. In no time, its large enough to give any porn star a run for their money. Despite himself, Shiro feels his insides react at the thought of it inside him.

“I went off your reference, but, well, sometimes that’s not enough. How’s this?” he asks, head cocked sideways like a hopeful puppy. “You seem like you can handle a lot. Or…  _ ohhh! _ ” His face lights up, dick shrinking back to normal size for a second. “Did you want something different? I can recreate a bunch of other types. Arusian, Galran, Xquelots, Bessonians…”

Which each new name, the genitalia of his double shifts. A short stubby cock with two heads. A huge pile driver with flared ridges, something that looked like anal beads stuffed in a tube sock, four foot-long tentacles, waving lazily in the air. All while his own face stares back at him, calm and pensive as if sprouting six types of dick was an everyday occurrence. 

“S-stop,” he manages, just as it sprouts something that looks like a cactus covered in nubs instead of spines. “No alien stuff. No  _ any _ stuff. Just…  _ what? _ How are you… why are you…  _ what  _ are you? You’re… you’re me… but you-”

“ _ Shhhh _ .” It reaches out, finger waving inches from Shiro’s lips as it cuts him off, and he’s grateful for how he seems to know not to try and touch him again, at least for now. “I told you, I’m not you, I’m your Kuron.”

“Kuron…” he repeats. It sounds familiar… but not in spoken name. More like he’s seen it someplace, in writing. Somewhere like on a box, or a on a register till. He gulps. “That’s… that’s the name of the to- you. But… why do you look like me?”

Kuron’s brow wrinkles. It — or should he be using he? — crosses his legs and frowns at him. 

“Because you cast me like this. You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t want to. You’d use your partner otherwise. Unless…” he squints at the discarded packaging on Shiro’s floor. When he turns back to Shiro, it’s with a distinctly more concerned face. 

“Wait. You know what I am, don’t you?”

“Not… not exactly.”

“But… but you read the instructions? Or someone explained them to you? Please tell me you used the online guide instead of just-” 

It trails off, noticing the instruction booklet, still wrapped in plastic. 

“You…” it squeaks, “you read the online guide,  _ right? _ ”

Shiro feels a twang of something like guilt and fear in his stomach. “Well… no…” he blathers, “but I figured it would all be pretty straightforward. It’s not like-”

But Kuron’s already launched himself off the bed, snatching the booklet and tearing it open. He thrusts it into Shiro’s hands. 

“You’re supposed to… everyone’s supposed to…” he says, voice creeping up in pitch. “It says so right here. There’s the warning label, and-”

“I don’t… I’m not great at reading common,” Shiro mumbles, flipping through the pages now. Most of it was in some other dialect, but there were small passages in fine text, ones where he could catch every third word or so. “The lady at the store didn’t say anything about special instructions or-”

He stops, instructions open to the centerfold. There, clearly marked with images, is only what he can guess was the proper way to use the… well, Kuron. What looked like a warm bath of water and the pictograms of two aliens, and the pill-like body of toy soaking between them. In the next image the blue alien put something that looked like a small piece of itself into the water, and the next a diagram of stirring it in, then a timer for ten doboshes. The final images showed three aliens now, two blue and one yellow, then of one of the blues pressed against the yellow, in what he assumed was a PG rated description of what was transpiring. Below that was a final picture, of the yellow sandwiched between them.

His stomach flip flops, and with a sickening jerk the pieces fall into place. 

“This… you… you’re a replica. For… for sex… or threesomes…”

Kuron hums. “You’re not wrong.”

“And I… I thought you were some kind of… Ben Wa ball or something...”

“Pretty much, yeah.” 

“And I… I…” He clutches his head and moans into his knees. He’s gone and shoved what was essentially a grow your own boyfriend toy up his ass, and now it was staring him in the face looking exactly like him because  _ it was supposed to _ , and Shiro’d been too stupid to take the time to stop and read the manual. 

“I think… I think I’m going to be sick,” he moans, and with startling speed he feels the mattress shift and Kuron’s at his side, rubbing his shoulders with a reassuring hand. “Sex toys aren’t supposed to be complicated. At most all you should need to do is check what types of lube to use… or how long to set the gelatin for-” he trails off, realizing he was about to admit to owning an Ovipositor toy to someone, but then again, that someone (or something? It was getting harder and harder to figure out what to call Kuron) already had a pretty good sense of  _ what _ he’d shove up inside himself. 

Kuron keeps massaging his neck, low noises of concern eeking from him. “Do you want me to get you something?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I just… I don’t know how to feel,” he groans. “Maybe I should have just ignored that saleslady and gone with that weird three dick dildo. At least I knew how  _ that _ was supposed to work.”

Kuron makes another noise, but says nothing. His grip on Shiro’s shoulder tightens for a moment and then he’s pulling away, moving off the bed. Shiro looks up from between his knees. His clone is sizing up the forgotten set of pyjamas folded on his dresser, and the jacket draped over the chair.

“What are you doing?”

“Something. Anything…. I’m... I’m going to go get you something to drink,” he says finally, pulling the grey bottoms on and shrugging his way into the top. He’s just… dressing up as him in his lounge wear and Shiro can’t do much else but gawk at the toy brought to life in front of him, pulling up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. It’s…  _ it’s him…  _ but it’s not. 

He’s so hung up on it, it takes seconds for what Kuron had just said to penetrate his brain. 

“Wait…  _ you’re leaving?! _ ” He bolts upright off the bed, sheet knotted around his waist.  _ No no no that didn’t sound good. What would people say? What would this Kuron do? _

His double stands there, arms hanging loose by his sides as he gives Shiro a tired smile. “You’re… well, you’re still in shock right now. Clearly, me activating’s freaked you out more than you’re trying to let on, having a break from me might help a bit. I’ll be back soon enough.”

_ That… that’s unexpected.  _ Shiro’s mouth flaps for a moment, opening and closing like a goldfish’s until he gets it under control. His brain is firing off six questions a second, but nothing seems to come out of him. At least, nothing except-

“Do you… do you know where the kitchen is?” 

Four dozen questions about what just happened, and the only thing he can ask is  _ do you know where the kitchen is _ . It’s so stupid, and yet… the second he stops to think about it it hits him. This  _ Kuron’s _ copied his body, his  _ voice _ … what if it’s copied other things. What if… what if Kuron has all his memories embedded in him. What if what’s standing in front of him is an android doppleganger, ready to take his place. It sounds paranoid, but... it’s happened once before. What if...

“No, I don’t,” Kuron smiles, “but it can’t be that hard, right?” It’s one of those tired smiles Shiro’s given hundreds of times before, when he’s just ready to step away and be left alone. He’s not sure if he should feel comforted by it, or even more uneasy. 

“It’ll be fine… uh…” Kuron rubs the back of his neck, looking over at Shiro sheepishly. “Actually… what  _ is _ your name?”

Shiro stares at him, flabbergasted. “D-don’t you know?” He asks it before he can help himself. 

Kuron stares at him, blank and unreadable, except not entirely. Because it’s Shiro’s own body, and he knows what it feels like when his shoulders slant forwards like that, knows what’s probably going through Kuron’s head.

_ He… he really has no idea _ . No idea who’s body he’s just taken, or probably even the species he was supposed to be. Shiro feels a pang of sympathy for him all of a sudden. Despite how startling he’d been, how unsettled seeing another version of himself makes him, he doesn’t seem bad. In some ways, it reminds him of the past, of watching another version of himself, so eager to…

His fingers fist into the blankets.

“It’s Shiro,” he says. He hopes Kuron doesn’t know his expressions well enough to recognize his smile for what it is. 

“Shiro.” Kuron nods, hand hovering over the door panel. “That’s… that’s a nice name.”

\----

It hadn’t taken long for him to yank on some clothes of his own and strike out on his own. Letting a double of himself wander the Altas? Was he crazy? Anyone with two eyes would be able to spot the fact that  _ that _ Shiro had both arms, and it’d only be a matter of time before the alarm was raised. 

Shiro shivers, thinking about what would happen if one of the other paladins spotted Kuron, or worse, Krolia or Kolivan. It has him rifling through the instruction booklet in his hands, trying to search for a shred of mention on aggressive tendencies, or even whether or not he could make Kuron go back to the way he’d been, but all he managed to pick up on were a handful of words, things like “wet” and “please” and “caution”. No mentions of “off” or “violence”.

He’s tried reaching out to the Altas, asking her to help him find his clone, but every time he pictures him for her, she reminds him he’s right there, wondering how he could be so unsure of being in his own body. 

_ If only she knew. _

Kuron wasn’t in the nearest kitchenette, or the bathroom, or even the ones past that. He was getting worried. There was no telling where i-  _ Kuron  _ could be, and no guarantee he’d stay in the same spot as Shiro swept the entire ship. The only blessing was that in the dead of night, the chances of crossing paths with someone else was low. Hopefully he’d just gotten turned around, and would eventually find his way back to Shiro’s room. That was, if he was planning on going back there. 

He checks with the Atlas, asking if any escape pods or ships have left her hangars. She reminds him everyone is in bed, and that he should be too. 

He’s flipping through a section of the booklet that seems to be about what to do after Kuron activated, looking for any guidance on what to do now, when he collides smack with something very much alive. 

“Kuro-  _ oh!”  _ He stumbles, flailing to catch the instructions before they fall to the ground.  _ “ _ C-Coran,” he stammers, fake smile plastered across his face. “You’re awake too?”

The Altean advisor stares at him, moustache quirked to the side with an amused grin. “I could say the same to you, number one. Why are you up so late at night?”

“I…” Shiro racks his brains for a reason  _ other _ than hunting down his well endowed doppelganger, but before he can, Coran catches sight of the booklet in his hands. 

“A little late night reading then? Seems to be a little less stimulating than a novel, but what do we have here…”

Shiro’s tries to shove it behind his back, but it’s too late, Coran’s eyebrows raising with a knowing look as he spies the the cover text. 

“A  _ Kuron _ , eh? Well, well, well… I hadn’t taken you as the type Shiro, but I can’t blame you. They  _ are _ supposed to be quite the device.”

Hot shame floods the back of his neck, but Shiro fights to stay firm. 

“It’s… it’s not… I’m an adult! It’s…” he balks, staring at Coran’s amused face as he twirls his moustache. “ _ Wait. _ You know what it is?”

“But of course,” Coran chuckles, “I’ve heard they’ve been quite the rage in the past thousand years or so. Of course, back in my day, you could find odds and ends like them, but nothing quite as sophisticated. They really are a modern marvel, as uncommon as they are. If I had-” he starts, but he trails off, eyes misty and wistful. “Well, let’s say I’m not as young as I used to be. I don’t believe I’d get quite the use from one I’d hope for.”

Shiro looks at the booklet, then back to Coran. 

“How much do you know about them?”

“Bits and pieces,” he shrugs. “Why?”

Shiro chews his lip before surrendering to the inevitable. No point in hiding things now. 

“I bought it without quite knowing what it was, and I can’t read the instructions very well. I think I get the general gist, but… d’you think?” He offers up the booklet, fighting the urge to avert his eyes. At this point, there shouldn’t be any harm in asking. Coran doesn’t need to know he’s already accidentally activated it. 

The old Altean flips through the pages, eyebrows jumping every so often as he reads. “Well m’boy, what exactly do you want to know? I suppose at some point you’ll want to activate it, but have you picked as what?”

“I… I have an idea,” he says, ears burning slightly. “But I can’t quite figure out what that’ll mean. Will it be a robot? Or alive? Or…” he trails off, thinking of Kuron, wandering somewhere around the Atlas. “I guess… I need to know what I’m getting into.”

“Wise of you,” Coran hums, flipping a page with a lick of his thumb. “Kurons are more than just your standard Altean multi-tool. They’re meant to be complete companions, both physically and emotionally. Their initial purpose was for couples separated for long periods, but it didn’t take long for them to become fantasy fuel. Get a little genetic material of the person you like, activate them, and you have someone very much like the person they’re modeled on. It’s part of the reason why they’re hard to find now, too many celebrities sued the company over multiple doubles of them running around. Why, even poor Bi-boh-bi has had a few over the years.” He wipes a tear from his eye. “Tragic really, they’re such a good concept, but people tend to misuse them.”

Shiro very much wishes he could erase the image of black market Bi-boh-bi deep fakes on the alien web, but both he and Coran know he can’t now. “So they’re perfect copies of someone? Of  _ everything _ ?” Shiro feels his heartbeat creep up, and not for the first time tonight.

“Not precisely.” Coran’s pouring over a new passage now, eyes whizzing across the page. “While they take on an exact appearance of their template, they only gain the temperment of the model, nothing more. No memories, no cloned brains. It says here you shouldn’t expect their personalities to be quite the same either, although many of their core reactions will be the similar. For example, if you have an aggressive template, a Kuron might be more likely to act out when upset, but in the same vein if they’re based off someone even-tempered you shouldn’t expect any outbursts.”

Shiro wouldn’t exactly call himself aggressive… but then again, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to throwing fists or his blood pressure spiking. The thought has him hoping Kuron won’t run into Slav any time soon. 

Coran gives Shiro a knowing look. 

“If you’re concerned about something like the ordeal with Haggar, you needn't worry. They’re completely safe. There’s no way to corrupt or change a Kuron once it’s activated, their operations are encrypted tighter than your own brain. They can’t lie about being the real version of someone either, one of their marketing strategies I suppose. There’s a section right here on it. Any changes to it over time come from the AI learning about their environment, but even so there’s not much tuning that can be done after the initial activation.”

A small sigh leaves him. That was good. He doesn’t have to worry about his latest purchase turning evil and attacking the rest of his crewmates. But there was still the issue of Kuron looking exactly like him, and a clone walking around the Altas wasn’t exactly something that would fly.

“About that,” he asks, “activating… What exactly does that mean? Can they deactivate? Do they… go back to being a little package afterwards?”

“It does seem to be possible,” Coran hums, thumbing through the final few pages. “There seems to be a little here on having a Kuron revert back to storage form. Of course, they have to include that feature. There should be a small device in its box to do the job, disrupt the bosons and matrix of the form it’s cast in. But as for fully deactivating… not so much.”

“What do you mean?” Shiro tries to take the instructions back, squinting at the small print. “Doesn’t storing them deactivate them too?”

“Not exactly, see here?” Coran taps the bottom of the page, at a block of text labeled with six different universal caution symbols. “Once the nanites register a genetic signature, it can’t be wiped, something about the waveform collapsing to a single physical form. Whoever — or whatever — you activate it with, that’s what it’ll be until the end of time. Just how the technology is. There’s a full user agreement in the back on how you can’t return one once it’s imprinted, so be careful.”

A lump’s starting to form in Shiro’s throat. “And if I’m not?”

“Well,” Coran shrugs, “I suppose it's your fault then if you turn it into a permanent Kalternecker. Or space wolf. Which reminds me, Kosmo really does get into everything, doesn’t he? You should probably pack it away before he can get at it.”

Shiro’s stomach lurches at the thought. A second Kosmo, offering to dick down any takers. At least he avoided that reality. But that still leaves him with this current one, one where he has to decide to do with the duplicate of himself. 

“Oh, don’t look so down.” Coran’s hand claps itself onto his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to scare you off your new gizmo, just letting you know the facts. In the right hands, they can make people incredibly happy. It’s just a matter of making the right choices throughout.”

“You make it sound like a relationship,” Shiro huffs. “And I don’t know if I’ve ever been good at those.”

“In a way, it is. You’ll see. Just take it at your own speed and I’m sure you’ll work things out.”

“Right…” Shiro nods, stomach knotting as he reaches out to the Atlas once again. “My own speed.”   
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kuron finds the observation deck and Shiro wrestles with some difficult choices

In the end, it’s him asking the Altas to locate something not quite human that brings him to Kuron. She’s murmuring in his ear, guiding him up closer to the bridge towards the strange not-lifeform like him. He fingers the deactivation key in his pocket, ready for whatever comes next. Kuron could go easily, or it might put up a fight. He hadn’t exactly figured out the full details of hand-to-hand combat with his new arm, his fight with Sendak had shown plenty of weaknesses there, that was for sure. Hopefully what Coran had said about anti-violence programming was right, but after everything the universe’s hit him with, he’s not about to let his guard down. 

To his surprise, the Atlas is guiding him away from the bridge, away from the escape pods or even the small kitchenette room. There’s practically nothing down this hallway except… except that. The Atlas keeps guiding him on, to the set of translucent doors he knows far too well. As soon as he steps through, walks onto the floor of the deck it hits him with a pang. 

Of all places, he was here. The same place he’d expect himself to find himself, if he was dropped in the middle of the Atlas without a clue.

Of course it’d be the observation deck. Of course. 

His grip on the key tightens as he approaches.

His double is sitting on the floor, chin propped on the bar of a railing, legs dangling down over the deck below. Something like smoke is wafting up around him, and as Shiro steps closer he realizes it’s the steaming contents of a mug at his side. That… that makes him pause, grip loosening on the key. Why did Kuron have-

Shiro takes another step and his slippers squeak on the floor. Kuron jolts up with a jerk so sudden Shiro swears he misses banging his head on the top of the rail by millimeters, the two of them both jumping back as their eyes lock onto each other’s. 

There’s an unmistakable look of shock and guilt on Kuron’s face. It’s so much like young cadets at the garrison his usual response is slipping out before he knows it.

“You get lost?”

God, it’s stupid, of  _ course _ this…  _ Kuron _ is lost. He was just created an hour ago, how the hell would he know the lay of the Atlas? But of course, it’s the first thing that came to him and now they’re both staring in awkward silence.

Kuron gawks at him a bit, looking him up and down before nodding slowly and turning back to face the windows once more. There’s a touch of red on his ears. 

_ Embarrassed. Oh my god… was his alien sex bot… embarrassed? _

It’s question enough for the immediacy of Kuron’s deactivation to be knocked down a spot on the priority list. Shiro decides to sit down beside him, still watching closely as he does. Even when he’s seated, legs dangling over the balcony Kuron doesn’t look at him. He’s still focused out, beyond the glass of the window. Before long, Shiro’s looking out there too, even if every other sense is heightened for signs of an attack. 

They’re passing by a nebula now, stardust lit up in shades of lilac and silver. He can catch glimpses of a few familiar star systems, and a few unfamiliar ones. There’s that familiar temptation of wanting to examine them closer, mark them on a star chart and revist them later, but he shoves it down. Now’s not the time for that.

Something nudges against Shiro’s thigh. The mug, filled with something that smells like lemon and herbs. It definitely hadn’t been that close a second ago. Kuron’s chin is rested on his arms, still staring pointedly ahead, but Shiro could swear they were crossed the other way round a second ago.

He picks it up. Sniffs it. Whatever’s in it, it smells fresh, no traces of Tang or fake neon orange flavour packets. He swears he can smell honey too, though he’s not totally sure. He gives it another sniff, steam tickling over his nose, and takes a sip. Then another.

It’s warm and sweet, like citrus cider, and a part of it has him wondering if this is something in Kuron’s programing. He definitely didn’t know how to make anything like this, so how did something made for bedroom antics know? He didn’t exactly think it was something programmers would try and put in there, but then again… hadn’t Coran mentioned Kurons did more than just…  _ that _ ? Maybe part of being a  _ ‘perfect companion’ _ was knowing how to do things outside the bedroom. Things like making stuff like tea… or knowing when someone needed space.

“S’it good?”

Shiro glances over to find Kuron watching him from behind his elbow, eyes as big as planets. It’s disarming, that look. It’s not something he’s ever seen on his own face, it’s not a face he’d ever make in the mirror or be caught making in photos, but it’s so unmistakably earnest, so unmistakably  _ human _ he has to catch himself to keep from staring.

He leans back and takes another sip, cheeks feeling a little warmer all of a sudden. “Yeah, it is. Thanks,” he smiles. He rolls the mug between his palms, letting the warmth seep into his skin. True to his word, Kuron had gone and got him something, regardless of his little detour here. Shiro watches the trails of vapour rise from its surface, little translucent coils like skeletons of the star systems they were passing by now. Not quite the same scale, but beautiful all the same. 

It’s… it’s strange. Here, dressed and sitting beside each other, Kuron doesn’t feel quite as alien as earlier. Sure… seeing another version of himself is definitely weird… but it isn’t exactly as if he has no experience with that particular situation. He takes another sip of his drink, taking the chance to study Kuron with a sidelong glance. The clone seems conflicted, not sure if he should be looking directly at Shiro or off somewhere else, fidgeting in place with his ankles tightly crossed. As Shiro brings the mug down, he swears he catches an extra hint of red in the clone’s cheeks, eyes now firmly fixed forwards. It has him second guessing looking at him too. Almost as if he’d walked in on something private.

Shiro clears his throat awkwardly. “Thinking about something?”

Kuron glances at him for a second, before his eyes fix forward once again. It’s odd. It’s not a cold mechanic cold shoulder he’d expect. Really, if anything, it was kind of like Keith, back before he’d begun to open up. That kind of aloofness that comes with growing up uncertain if speaking your mind is worth the trouble or if all you get is hollow apathy. It’d been a tough nut to crack with Keith then, but he’d done it, with little bits and pieces, putting himself out there and taking a few guesses as to what must be going on in that fortress of a mind. Doing it for a robot (or… a sex toy) seemed odd, but at the same time...

“About earlier…” Shiro swirls the tea about, watching the steam coil into a perfect, imperfect spiral, “I’m sorry for freaking out like I did. It just… I didn’t know what I’d signed up for and it caught me off guard.” 

“S’fine…”

Kuron’s nose is buried in the crook of his elbow, eyes still locked out on the horizon. His eyes are unreadable, distant, and even knowing himself as well as he does Shiro’s at a loss for exactly what’s going through his head right now, only that seeing it sends a pang through his chest. Its… he knows Kuron is just supposed to be a bunch of nanites and code but it feels so  _ real _ , so relatable. For a moment he’s not on the Atlas, but back at the garrison, finding Keith sitting alone on the roof, watching the sun set with the shouts of teachers searching for him echoing across the grounds. Or… Or back in the cockpit of the Black Lion, watching another face just like this one second guess who he was, what he was, even as Shiro tried to scream at him from the limbo of Black’s consciousness.  _ Someone _ . Someone wrestling with themselves, someone on the brink of being lost.

The deactivation key in his pocket suddenly feels like it weighs ten pounds. It would be so easy… just take it out, touch it to Kuron and this whole thing would be over. He could tuck this whole night away in memory just like that little pill form in the back of his dresser. All he has to do is make the move… Kuron is just sitting there, not even looking at him, with  _ that _ face.

But… but this doesn’t feel like a robot or machine. This feels… real.

Shiro looks down at his tea, fingers tightening around the mug.

“Is everything really fine though?” 

Kuron flinches. 

Tea slops over Shiro’s hands as he jumps as well. Kuron… Kuron looks downright spooked right now, staring at him like a stray cat cornered in an alley. A big, clone of himself cat, but like that all the same. And like with strays, whether they were in the alley back behind his grandpa’s home or behind the dumpsters of the garrison, he can’t tear himself away. He can’t just leave it there and let things be. No, some part of him, stupid or not, needs to reach out.

He needs to try. 

Shiro licks his lips, grip tightening on the mug before he manages to force it slack once more. “I’m only asking… because, well…” he sighs. “It seems like we’re both equally blindsided by this. I mean… I didn’t know what I was signing up for when I bought you, and you didn’t know I didn’t know either, and you  _ saw _ how well I took that earlier.”

He lets out a puff of self deprecating laughter at that, but Kuron doesn’t seem to follow suit. 

“Look,” Shiro continues, “for all extents and purposes, you didn’t ask for this anymore than I did. In fact, you asked for it way less. I could have done a lot more… I could have asked that saleslady for more details, or asked someone for help going through that instruction book instead of going and jumping in blind. I could hav-”

“Stop...” Kuron cuts. He’s frowning out from behind the sleeve of his borrowed jacket, nose smushed up against his bicep. “I get it. You bought me without knowing, and now you’ve gone and messed me up.”

“Messed is a little…”

“It happens. More than you’d think.” 

Kuron settles deeper into his arms, eyes dark and overcast. When he speaks again, it’s muffled. “We’re supposed to expect it... accidental activations. It’s a statistic we all have to be aware of. You never hope to be part of it, but… well, here we are.” He sighs, the curve of his jaw sharpening as he clenches his teeth. He sticks out his arm, baring it to Shiro.“Just… just do it fast.” 

He holds it there, frozen, waiting, but Shiro doesn’t do anything. He can’t. He’s just staring at Kuron, mouth dry. 

Kuron… any Kuron… they knew this was a possibility. The chance that they’d be activated as something their owner didn’t want with no way to fix it. And they just… accepted it, or at least,  _ his _ did. 

The deactivation key’s still in his pocket. Kuron wasn’t even going to fight over it. He could just take it out… just… end it all right now. 

Shiro swallows, before moving closer. It’d be so easy… he could deactivate Kuron and forget this night ever happened. All of these weird nerves and feelings could be gone, filed away in the back of his head like that unassuming little lump would be stuffed in the back of his sock drawer. Kuron’d let him, he was all but asking for it right now, offering himself up, eyes cast away, jaw set, arm…  _ trembling _ …

A stone drops to the bottom of Shiro’s guts. On someone else’s face he could say he didn’t know the signs, couldn’t pick up on the tells, but he  _ can’t _ . Not with  _ this… _ not with… well…  _ him.  _ It’s like he can hear everything going though his double’s head right now, feel the prickles of anxiety at his fingertips and the cold, churning concoction of reluctant defeat in his belly. He knows those feelings so well…

Maybe… maybe he didn’t have to keep feeling them.

He slides right up beside Kuron, pushing his arm back into his lap. 

The clone stares at him. “What are you... ? Wait, do you not know about the key? Or the protocol? Or-”

Shiro shushes him with a bump of the elbow as he settles against the rail. His stomach’s filled with a different kind of energy now, nervous flutters, but he’s already taken his first stride. “I know. I read the manual,” he says, looking off ahead into the starscape. “Or more… I ran into someone else who helped translate it for me.” 

“... and?” Kuron’s voice is so small, barely a whisper. Shiro wants to see the face paired with it, but he doesn’t dare turn around. 

“And…” he waffles on what to say, forefinger stroking the ring of his mug.

“It helped... put things a little more into perspective. I have a better idea of what you are. When I first saw you, I had no idea of how similar you were. Of  _ how much _ you copied. Now… now I know it pretty much ends at looks. Sure… you might have the same voice as me, or the general temperament… but you’re not me. Right?”

“Nonono.” Kuron shakes his head, sitting up a little straighter beside him. “We don’t copy beyond the physical. There’s a bit extra we can get from genetic scans, sometimes stuff a little beyond just plain looks. You… I don’t know anything about you, beyond your name and what you’re willing to shove up your-”

“Stop…” he groans. “I… can we just forget that ever happened?”

Kuron frowns. “I can try, but I can’t exactly…”

“Just… let’s not mention it.”

They sit together in silence for several long moments, Shiro still taking sips from his mug. It’s halfway to cold, barely lukewarm now, but the honey notes still carry through. He can feel Kuron fidgeting beside him, and he’s pretty sure his double keeps trying to speak between stolen glances. He takes another long draw of tea and shoots a glance Kuron’s way. 

The clone is outright staring at him, and for a second Shiro thinks some circuit inside him must have failed he looks so much like he’s in the middle of rebooting. Cold tea fills his cheeks, and with a gargantuan effort Shiro swallows the load down with a noise that rings through the dead air between them. 

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” Kuron’s forehead is creased, lips set in a tight line as he continues to study Shiro. “You’re not deactivating me. You’re not even trying to usher me back to your room. You’re just… sitting here. Not freaking out. It’s… it’s weird.”

Shiro looks at him. “Well… what do you want me to do?”

Kuron balks. “I… I…” he stammers, and Shiro has to admit it’s kind of nice knowing he’s not the only one having problems processing all this.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to answer.” 

Kuron blinks at him for several long seconds. “Then… what are we doing?”

Shiro stretches, looking back at the galaxy sweeping past them. The Atlas lets out a gentle hum beneath him, reassuring him that everything’s under control. If he’s not mistaken, he can catch sight a few stars in Cygnus in the distance. “I don’t know exactly? Getting used to this new normal?”

“New… normal? You mean?”

Shiro hums. “Yeah. It doesn’t seem fair not to at least try. Who would I be if I could turn down myself?”

There’s a squawk of protest, something like the start of  _ ‘I’m not-’ _ but it loses steam before Kuron can ramp up into it, the clone settling back down beside him into silence once more. 

“Is there… is there a reason you decided on that?”

“Well…” Shiro leans back, taking a sidelong glance at Kuron. “I wouldn’t call it a full on reason… but when I found you here… it reminded me of my first ever mission off Earth, the first time I ever saw space without light pollution all around me. Totally mesmerized, just getting lost in it all. I guess a part of me figures that if you like space half as much as me, you can’t be all that bad.”

Kuron’s cheeks flush.  _ Oh… oh, that was unexpected. _ The clone plants an elbow on the rail, chin propped in his hand hiding the worst of his surprise but still failing to hide the trace of a smile there.

“Well… it’s just… it’s so beautiful. I didn’t know to what to expect. I mean… when I imprinted… I… well,  _ we _ ... Kurons…” he stammers, “Oh crap, I should have mentioned. We load a set of words that match with our template. Things that register with their species’s languages and whatever other indicators we can pick up on during activatoin. It’s how I can talk with you, and how I know what you’re saying, but so much of it is just definitions and abstract concepts. It’s not…”

“Not the real thing,” Shiro says, settling against the rail and letting his arm brush against Kuron’s. A word template. He’d assumed it was some kind of universal translation feature, but it turned out Kuron probably spoke only the same languages as him. Somehow, that makes him feel even more comfortable right now.

“Yeah,” Kuron nods. “Like… I have the names of all these stars, all these galaxies in my head, and I know  _ what  _ they’re supposed to be, but I don’t know  _ what _ they  _ are _ , you know?”

Shiro can’t help but feel a start of a smile on his lips. 

“I think I have an idea,” he says, scooting closer, until their heads are almost touching. He feels oddly relaxed now, as if he’s known Kuron for more than a handful of hours. Maybe it’s the familiarity, or how he’d held him just now, strong yet cautious, but it has him feeling like he’s known him for years. “Are there any things you want me to point out for you? Not to brag, but I’m a pretty big space nut.”

There’s a pause, a moment where there’s no other sound other than the rumble of the Atlas’s engines. And then…

“Could you point out Andromeda?”

Shiro smiles, scanning the skies in front of them as his head presses into Kuron’s hair. 

“That depends. Are you asking about the constellation, or the galaxy?”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters update today!
> 
> There's some growing pains with learning how to look after your new six foot boyfriend toy. Stuff like figuring out how you're going to break the news to your friends. Or you know... hiding the fact he exists because he looks exactly like the clone that tried to kill him that one time.

Shiro wakes the next morning to warmth wrapped all around him. There’s the familiar weight of blankets, the added lethargy of night well-slept, but also something else, something he hasn’t felt in years, pressed up against him. It takes him ages to find the energy to stir and pull back the covers, body practically melted into the mattress, but after a long moment he does, peeling off the warmth and opening himself up to cool morning air. Something stirs against his middle, groaning, and in the low lighting of his room Shiro’s just able to make it out. 

Kuron, arms wrapped around his waist, face buried in Shiro’s shirt against his stomach. He can feel the press of the other’s nose against his belly, and if he really focuses, he can feel warm puffs of air just above his navel every time he breathes. Somewhere deeper under the blankets he’s aware of Kuron’s body weaved between his legs, one of his knees no doubt having hooked over him some time in the night. 

_ It’s… oddly comforting _ he realizes, watching as the white mess of Kuron’s bangs shifts with the clone pressing his face harder into Shiro’s stomach with the sudden cold. The arms around his waist tighten and he feels Kuron slot himself closer. 

He has to hold back a little sound at that. 

It’s been ages since he’s woken up like this. Even back when he’d last been dating someone, the final few weeks had been spent sleeping beside each other, barely touching aside from an arm or finger here or there. It reminds him of cuddling through pre-heat cramps back then, but even then it had been different, slotted against each other with himself as the little spoon, warm hands rubbing his sides. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until now. 

When he’d gone to bed Kuron had been more self conscious than a preteen, fidgeting at the side of the bed until Shiro’d waved him over and offered him the space beside him. Their time mapping out this quadrant of space had helped Shiro warm up to him, but clearly Kuron had been still adjusting.  _ Poor thing… _ he rubs a finger along one of his sideburns, feeling the soft fuzz of hair. It was probably because of his whole reaction at the start everything. In a way it was oddly charming. He’d had no issues with pressing close when Shiro’d been pointing out stars, but back in his bedroom he’d stayed at arm’s length. He’d had to ask if Kuron wanted to sleep or not (and if he could), and even after he’d let Kuron crawl over him and up against the wall the double had kept apart from him, curling up at the very edge of the bed up until Shiro’d fallen asleep. Clearly somewhere in the night he’d nodded off himself, but whether he’d moved to wrap himself around Shiro’s middle before or after that was anyone’s guess.

Shiro smiles, stroking Kuron’s hair back against his scalp. In a way, this reminds him of a child, twining close to a parent or sibling after a nightmare. He’d done it himself more than once in his life, crawling in bed beside his parents and letting that reassuring warmth and bulk scare away the fears of monsters and wolves. How many times when he’d gotten older, reminded he was too big to crawl in beside them had he wished for someone else he could sidle up beside, ward off the bad dreams in their place?

Seeing Kuron doing it now… it sends warm thrums of contentment through him. 

Shiro settles back against the pillows, pulling the covers up just enough that only the top of Kuron’s head peeks out.  _ Ten more minutes _ … he can lie here for ten more minutes before he needs to get up and get ready for the day. He’s got the time, and Kuron looks so comfortable, he doesn’t have the heart to wake him.

* * *

Shiro wakes with a start. 

There’s a pounding at his door, fists banging against metal so hard he swears it’s on the verge of caving in as he almost falls out of bed, but the grip around his waist keeps him from tumbling out completely. Kuron lets out a groggy noise of confusion against him as Shiro balances himself up off the floor with his fingertips. 

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice rings out from the other side of the door with an edge of irritation and worry. “Shiro, are you in there? We have a meeting with the other coalition heads in five minutes and no one’s seen you. What are you doing?”

Shiro glances back at Kuron’s glazed over eyes, making the same pre-coffee slow-blinks he knows he’s wont to do. “Uh....” 

_This definitely isn’t easy to explain. Least of all to Keith first thing at…._ _10:25 in the morning_. 

_ Crap. _

He wiggles the rest of his way out of Kuron’s hold, landing on the floor with a thud and crawling over to his folded uniform. “I had trouble sleeping last night,” he calls, stripping off his shirt and shorts and beginning to yank on a fresh pair of boxers. “Must have turned my alarm off in the night.”  _ Or never set it at all _ , he groans to himself, worming his way into his pants like a man possessed. Man… last night really must have thrown him off his stride, he almost never slept in this late, not even after late night benders back at the garrison. 

Except…

Shiro stops, jacket halfway buttoned to his chest. Except he  _ had _ actually woken up on time, only that he’d decided to roll over, sleep another ten minutes. 

“More like three hours…” he mumbles to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing!” he yells back at the door, hopping to tug his boots on and fruitlessly comb his fingers through his hair to tease out the worst of his bedhead. Kuron’s watching him, somewhat more awake looking, but making no moves to leave the bed yet. He crouches down beside him and brings his mouth to the other’s ear, barely speaking above a whisper as he does up the last of his buttons. “I have to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay out of sight until I figure out what to do.”

Kuron nods. He reaches out, and for a second Shiro’s heart jumps into is throat, unsure of what he’s doing. Fingers slide around Shiro’s neck, and with a gentle tug he straightens out his collar. 

“It was crooked,” he says, pulling back with a little puff of accomplishment. “Better now.”

Shiro can only bob his head as he stands back up, urging the blood rushing through him to calm.  _ What had he been… _ he starts, but any further thoughts down that line are cut off by another round of knocking and Keith interjecting.

“Are you decent? I’m coming in.”

There’s a beep and the lock on the door releases just as Kuron dives into the mess of blankets and sheets on his bed. Shiro dives for the entryway, ready to cut Keith off at the pass. 

His best friend stands just over the threshold, staring up at him over two mugs of coffee. He looks tired, but relieved to see him, handing out a cup before Shiro can so much as start forming an apology. Kosmo peeks out from his side, large snout snuffing at the air appreciatively. For a second Shiro panics he’ll smell Kuron, but the wolf doesn’t bark or move, only lick his own nose with an innocent little smack. 

“Never thought I’d be the one dragging you out of bed this late,” Keith teases, thrusting a danish into Shiro’s other hand. “Pidge, yeah. Lance, for sure, but not you. Usually you’re the one banging on my door first thing, telling me it's time for sparring practice. What gives?”

Shiro takes a sip of coffee as they start down the hall. It’s rich, with the perfect amount of cream cutting the bitterness. Keith knows him well.

“Lost track of time,” he shrugs, biting into the danish. “Wound up wandering the Atlas last night and ended up on the observatory deck.”

“And lemme guess, you spent the next two hours staring out the window,” Keith snorts. “I know you… you probably started trying to find all the star systems we’ve been too and lost track of time.”

“Pretty much.” He didn’t need to tell Keith that half of that time had been pointing out different stars to Kuron and explaining each and every one, from how old to what type they were. He’d probably spent ten minutes on Sirius alone, explaining celestial navigation and the significance it held back on Earth. There’d been a dreamy look on Kuron’s face whenever he’d turn to check if he was following, and every time he’d asked he’d simply nod and wave him on, the two of them staying there long after Shiro’s tea became ice cold. By his guess, they hadn’t stumbled back to bed until almost four AM, when even the excitement of sharing his love of astronomy drew thin. Even Kuron had looked somewhat floppy by the end of it.

Come to think of it… he’d wondered if Kuron needed to sleep the same as he did, but by the looks of things it seemed like he had to, or at least he could sleep one way or another. Which was good. Really… he wasn’t all that keen on the idea of Kuron just sitting there, awake, watching him the whole night. From all he could tell, Kuron might very well sleep the rest of the day, they had been up late.

Shiro stops short for a second, mug sloshing dangerously. If Kuron needed to sleep, same as him, what were the chance he also needed food too? Alien tech was always filled with all kinds of strange and small power sources, but then again, batteries always got depleted and needed to charge somehow. He should really try and sneak some food for him after lunch and see.

He shoots Keith a sheepish grin, who’s stopped some five feet ahead of him with a look of sheer “really?” and catches back up. He’s pretty sure Kuron can make it until noon on his own, after all, he’s gone longer without breakfast himself, and those are on days he’s started far earlier than today. He can relax and focus on their meeting now and see how things are fairing later.

They make it to the boardroom far faster than he’d anticipated, with a minute still left to spare. He can feel the Atlas thrumming happily at the edge of his mind, and he knows she’s done her small part to help them get there on time. He gives the doorway a little pat in thanks as he steps in, the room already filled with Olkari and Rylarians and humans alike, all of whom turn to him as he and Keith make their way inside. All of them waiting for him to start.

Keith gives his shoulder a nudge as he makes his way to his own seat, and then it’s only Shiro standing, right at the head of the table. He’s still only halfway through his coffee, still in the first stages of waking up, but he’s never been one to shirk his duties. With a great swing he downs the rest of his mug and slams it down on the boardroom table, grinning as the last few stragglers come to attention.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “shall we begin?”

* * *

Despite his shaky start to the morning and the itchy feeling of his uniform, the meeting’s going surprisingly well. They’d made it through operational reports at lighting speed, and there were even a few encouraging reports about calming some battles between Galran warlords. Keith’s mother and Kolivan had managed to wrestle control of a particularly large quadrant of space in the blackeye galaxy, and now there were no less than 4 previous warring generals under their command now (how they managed that Shiro wasn’t sure he wanted to know). 

But of course, as these meetings always did, they returned to the topic of Haggar and the missing Alteans.

“I’m telling you,” Keith groused across the table at Ozar, “they  _ were _ there.”

“And I’m telling you one more time we found nothing when we got there. Not even a scrap of hair.”

“Then how do you explain how I’m here?” Romelle’s seated a few chairs down from Keith, pouting even more than Keith is. “Everyone was real in there, trust me, I know. She must have taken them, and she must still have them, or else there’s no other was that robeast with Luka would have appeared on Earth.”

“I’m just telling you both what we found, and by the looks of it, if there was anyone there before they’ve up and disappeared without a trace. The quantum abyss makes it impossible to track ship trails. For all we know they could have all tumbled into a black hole and we’d be none the wiser.”

“And I’m telling you she has them somewhere, and if we don’t find them she’s going to send more of those things after us!” There’s a bang against the tabletop as Keith slams his hand down and several people jump. Keith sits up taller, sucking in a breath to calm himself. When he talks, it’s with a balanced tone. “We all know that it’s only a matter of time before she tries to attack again. That’s why it’s so important to try and be one step ahead of her if we can. We can’t risk having her damage the Atlas when we’re out this far away from a safe planet. It could be the end of everyone here.”

The room falls silent as Keith’s words sink in. They’ve all known this, known it for months now, but with Haggar lying low comes the false sense of security that she’s no longer trouble. Shiro knows this just as much as anyone, if not more, making sure both himself and Romelle were safe after the aftermath of what had happened with her friend.

“Keith’s right,” he sighs, dragging his cursor across the holo-screen between them all. “Even if it’s not our top priority, it should still be higher on the list. We should try and make a list of possible places she might be and have groups investigate them when they’re in reasonable vicinity. The more we narrow them down and the more we lock down peace in the rest of the universe, the fewer places she’ll be able to hide without us knowing.”

“And the sooner we can recover the Alteans from her control.” Allura’s brow is knit tight together as it always is these days, one of her hands held reassuringly in Lance’s. 

“Exactly.” Shiro throws up a map of space over the table. “So with that in mind, we need to talk about the next quadrants to focus on. So far, we’ve got about a quarter of the known universe out of contention in Galran civil warring, but there’s still an awful large portion we have to look after. Of those regions…” he taps a few more buttons, “ _ these _ are the most critical areas to make sure are protected from further warring. Sectors 14 and 32 especially, based on their large civilian populations and the resources they can provide to the feuding warlords.”

“I can try and cross correlate those with areas we know Haggar’s been,” Pidge pipes up. “And if Slav and dad make any more progress they might be able to get some readings from that wrecked robeast of where it warped from before arriving on Earth.”

“There’s also some coalition planets in these areas here.” Hunk waves at a few star systems in the middle of the map. “If the Atlas needs to restock on supplies, it’d be a good idea if our route can pass nearby one of them.”

_ Bless everyone _ , Shiro smiles, watching as little conversations start to crop up around the table on the best routes to take moving forwards. What he’d do without them he had no idea, they’d grown up so much since they’d all first found themselves in the middle of this war. He lets himself sit back a bit, soaking in how the other paladins began to take over directing the meeting, each of them bringing their own brand of leadership to the table. Lance is now reminding everyone of the delicate ethics situation, and he can see from the corner of the room Coran’s chatting with Reiner and Sam about some type of new toy the three of them are no doubt in the process of making. The conversation quickly turns lighter, questions of new teams and training exercises for Atlas crew and rebels alike. Somewhere along the line someone cracks a joke about Varkon and the entire table breaks out in chuckles, wiping eyes and clutching sides until they’re able to collect themselves enough to talk about warring Galra with actual firepower behind them. It’s nice to see the crew like this, working in harmony, everything as it should be.

Shiro blinks. He could have sworn he saw a bright flash of light outside the narrow windows of the meeting room, but then again, Kosmo’s always running around the ship getting into trouble. So long as he doesn’t have one of Sal’s knives with him it’s all good. 

“I think we’re agreed its best off if we slightly divert course towards Messier 51a to intercept some of the warring generals before continuing on to Jovutar-8. Shiro, have you any thoughts?”

He scans the path Allura’s just suggested in front of him. Not bad at all. They’re about a day’s flight away from Messier 51a, and they should have more than enough supplies to make it to a coalition base after then. “Sounds good to me,” he nods, checking over the faces in the room for any signs of hesitancy. “Unless there’s any objections I think we should follow the princess’s proposal.”

There’s hums and nods of agreement around the table, and even the gruffest of their allies seem to be on the same page. Allura’s now asking follow-up questions, seeing how soon everyone thinks they should get there, but Shiro’s focus has been pulled elsewhere. 

To the sliver of window showing the hallway outside, where a very familiar face is scratching the back of a very happy and **_very_** in trouble space wolf. As he watches Kuron bends down further into his line of sight, now trying to scratch Kosmo’s ears as well as rump. 

“Shiro, you have final say. Do we speed up or continue on course at our current pace?”

Behind the little beansprouts of hair atop Keith’s head he can clearly see Kosmo clambering all over Kuron, giving him great big doggy licks. He watches as the space wolf knocks his twin flat on his ass, tail practically vibrating as fingers scratch as his side right where it always gets Kosmo’s motor going. 

His jaw wags steadily lower as Keith leans in towards him, mouth set in a small pout. It’s… Kuron’s _ right there _ … smack out in a hallway where anyone can see with with just so much as a glance to the side. How is… how has anyone…

Keith’s eyes narrow, and with a terrible flip of Shiro’s stomach he catches the moment Keith realizes his focus is elsewhere, the exact second when he realizes that there’s something behind him, something that’s stealing Shiro’s attention, something that definitely, absolutely, will not be something Keith’ll leave be. 

“ _ Ah, _ ” Shiro blubbers, clapping a hand on Keith’s shoulder in an altogether too eager manner. “Yes… good question Keith.” He shakes his best friend, just a little bit too much, hoping it’s enough to distract him and pull focus back away from where Kosmo’s rolled over for Kuron to let him scratch his belly. “I think current pace is good for now. There’s no need to rush and burn extra fuel if we’re not needed. Besides, going in slower might give us more time to intercept signals from nearby Galran fleets and get a better sense of what we’re up against.”

Sam gives him an appreciative nod from across the table as his daughter and son both stretch out languidly. Pidge slides all the way off her chair and halfway to the floor before she’s standing, both her and Hunk eying each other with looks that mean the two of them are bound to be up to something within the hour. Keith’s still staring at him strangely, but, well… at least he isn’t looking behind him.

“God, I’m starving,” Lance moans, getting up himself. “Anyone have any idea what Sal’s making for us for lunch today?”

There’s a din of voices chiming in, all with different ideas of what the Galran chef’d been working on, but Shiro doesn’t focus on any of it. All he can focus on is the crew member headed towards the door, one hand already hovering over the lock panel, and the second him still on the other side playing with Kosmo’s nose. 

He bolts for the door, Keith calling out after him, but he already knows he’s too late. 

The door swings open. Shiro sucks in a breath, ready for the moment when all hell breaks loose. 

Only for there to be nothing but an empty hallway waiting on the other side, with no sign of the two bodies that had just been there other than the few sparks of blue energy that always marked the space-wolf’s exits. 

Keith comes up beside him, arms crossed and mouth fixed in a wry smile. “Mind telling me why you’re acting so weird?”

“I thought-” Shiro starts, but his tongue catches against the roof of his mouth. It’d be one thing if he said he thought he saw Kosmo, but Kosmo with  _ Kuron _ ? With a clone of himself? That’s not something he can see Keith reacting lightly to, and the idea of explaining just how and  _ why _ there’s now a double of him aboard the Atlas isn’t something he’s quite sure he’s ready to do. He and Keith shared a whole lot, but the rabbit hole of explaining one and then probably several of his adult store purchases was something that he was pretty sure neither of them wanted to fall down any time soon. Even if he just says he saw Kosmo, Keith’s no doubt going to go hunting for him now based on his reaction just now and that’ll probably end just as well. 

“Trust me,” he sighs, “you’re better off not knowing.”

Keith cocks an eyebrow. He’s clearly not satisfied with that, looking Shiro over a little more in detail, as if scanning for traces of fever or something else. It’s not the first time he wonders if Keith has some kind of sixth sense, something that lets him hone into something off kilter and analyze the cause. Sure… he’d slept in this morning, that was reason enough for Keith to be eying him cautiously, but there should be no way that Keith’d be able to put the puzzle pieces together and-

“It’s diarrhea Keith.” 

Shiro chokes. 

Lance’s appeared behind them, grinning like an eight grader after their first taste of troublemaking at the way Keith’s eyes bug out at him. 

“C’mon,” he shrugs, grin still plastered on his face. “It’s so obvious Keith. If someone doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s always safe to say diarrhea. And if it’s not, well, they’re always going to correct you because, I mean… it’s the hershey squirts.”

Shiro’s pretty sure a boiling kettle would be cooler than his face right now. Both Keith and Lance are looking at him expectantly now, ready for him to confirm or deny possibly the worst guess anyone could have ever made (and by the looks of it, Lance  _ knows _ this and is completely loving every second Shiro’s face grows progressively redder). 

“Shiro,” Keith presses softly. “Is that the case? Do you want me to see if there’s something in the medbay for you?” 

“N-no…” he wheezes, face brighter than Red’s in mortification. “I’ll be okay… I can just- I’ll stop by there myself if I need anything. Thanks guys.”

“Anytime,” Lance says. “You down for lunch?” He’s already steering Keith towards the door to where Allura and Hunk are waiting, Keith stumbling to keep up.

“I… not yet. I’ll catch up, I just need to-”

“De-embarrass yourself. Got it. Well, see you soon!”

Keith’s swept away in the lunch posse with the rest of them, leaving Shiro alone and still very much in shock. What… where had all that come from? On the one hand, it’d saved him from having to skirt the truth or lie to his best friend. On the other, now…

He groans, face in his hands at the all too fresh memory. Well… it could be worse… at least no one would be trying to actively imagine  _ that _ , unlike the all too real Kuron situation. Which… speaking of, he really needed to do something about before something worse than fake food poisoning happened.

Several deep breaths and a few slaps to the cheeks later, Shiro strikes off down the hall in search of two things that  _ definitely _ needed a talking to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking news: lorg hairy puppy and tol hooman puppy get in trouble for failed espionage

“What,” Shiro asks, “the  _ hell _ was that?”

Kosmo stares up from him from where he’s seated on Shiro’s bedroom floor, licking his lips in what Shiro can only see as a sign of faked innocence. There’s a half wagging of his tail tip too, as if he’s not quite sure if Shiro’s about to chew him out or give him a heaping spoonful of peanut butter. 

Kuron’s sitting beside the wolf on the floor, legs crossed and hands wrapped around his ankles, looking equally confused and somewhat guiltier than Kosmo. He’s frowning up at Shiro between glances at Kosmo, corners of his mouth steadily turning down as Shiro continues to lecture him. “What was what?” he asks after a long enough pause for Kosmo to start getting the hint that there was probably no peanut butter or praise to be had. “He hasn’t done anything… I’ve been with him for the past hour, all that’s happened was him pawing at me to keep him company, and then us wandering the halls a bit.” 

He reaches over to pat Kosmo’s shaggy back, earning a few timid wags as the wolf still looks up at Shiro. It seems to perk Kuron up as well, corners of his eyes crinkling as he turns to Shiro with a smile. “Did you know he can teleport? I didn’t know that was a thing, but he can do it! You feel a little fuzzy right after he does, but-”

“I  _ know _ ,” Shiro sighs, rubbing his brow where he knows a line is forming. “It’s just something he does, something he  _ really shouldn’t have done  _ just now.”

“But… it kept us out of sight. He heard a door opening and brought me back here.” Kuron offers up his arm, showing off a few damp patches that were no doubt drool on Shiro’s favourite hoodie where Kosmo must have grabbed him. “No one saw us.”

“ _ I  _ saw you,” Shiro frowns. 

Both Kuron and Kosmo shuffle in place at that. 

“There was a window  _ right out _ to where the two of you were, just because it seems like I was the only one who happened to look up doesn’t mean anyone else didn’t see you! And there was a  _ very _ real chance someone else could have when that door opened. You were literally feet from being spotted when someone got up to leave!”

Kuron stares up at him, frown even deeper than before. “You told me to try and stay out of sight. I did.”

“You’re forgetting both Kosmo and I saw you.”

Kuron trades a glance with the wolf. “Does Kosmo count if he can’t speak?”

“ _ Yes! _ ” Shiro slumps down on the bed, head in his hand. Honestly, of  _ all  _ things to find Kuron, Kosmo was probably one of the unluckiest besides a human being. One thing to make the wolf suspicious and he’d no doubt alert Keith, someone he  _ definitely _ couldn’t tell not to teleport around with him. Which would no doubt lead into…

Shiro swallows down that picture before it can come into focus.  _ No.  _ He really doesn’t want to think about what would happen if Keith found Kuron, other than the fact that it definitely wouldn’t be good, for any of them. At the very least, there’d be no way he’d be able to look at his best friend again without a hot rush of shame, and at the worst… well… that’s what he’s trying to avoid thinking of. Meaning he’d have to figure some way of bribing Kosmo not to alert Keith to the two Shiros now aboard the Atlas. 

“Shiro?” 

Kuron’s staring at him, face somewhat softened. Both his hands are now buried in the fur of Kosmo’s scruff. The space wolf’s moved now, slumped against Kuron’s shoulder, tongue lolling out as Kuron pets him. His clone’s frustration is replaced with something closer to worry, but there’s still that tell-tale hint of calm euphoria that always comes from petting dogs. 

Shiro keeps staring at them.

“Shiro? Why are you-”

He squints at the wolf harder. His tongue is full on out for display, panting happily as Kuron massages his great big hairy cheeks. He tilts his head back further, opening himself up to scritches under the chin that Kuron complies to, even if he continues to stare at Shiro like an advanced calculus problem. He only turns away when Kosmo lets out a little sneeze, mumbling a quick  _ ‘bless you’ _ . Kosmo licks his nose in response.

“He really… likes you…”

As impossible as it seems, Kosmo seems to have no issues with Kuron petting him, or the fact that there’s two identical humanoids in front of him, and this is the same space wolf that took  _ severe _ issues with shag carpeting and Lance’s body pillow. But… from the looks of it right now, Kosmo steadily leaking drool onto Kuron as his tail thumps against the floor, he likes Kuron just fine,  _ more than fine _ … Maybe even half as much as Keith, and he likes Keith a  _ whole heck _ of a lot.

Kuron gives Shiro another worried look before focusing on Kosmo again. “I guess, yeah. He just showed up in here and started sniffing through your laundry basket until I stopped him. Took a little bit to get him to give up one of your shirts, but I think he was just bored and looking for someone to play with. He got a little stir crazy after staying in here with me, so we ended up wandering around the halls a bit to calm him down.” He pauses, spine stiff. “I… you don’t have to worry though! I think he understood me when I said you’d asked me to stay out of sight, he kept teleporting us around the ship whenever he heard a noise.”

Shiro slides down onto his knees before the two of them. “Is that so?” He reaches out to pat Kosmo, transitioning into scratching an ear. “So, you were making sure Kuron wouldn’t get spotted, were you?”

Kosmo lets out a grunt and rolls his big head. Beside him, Kuron’s smirking at Shiro. “That’s what I keep telling you. He’s a good boy.”

“... Sorry Kosmo,” he says, giving the wolf an extra pat for sincerity. “Seems like you weren’t trying to be a bad boy after all. But Kuron,” he pulls back, giving his double a good hard stare. “I still don’t like the idea of you wandering around the ship, even if Kosmo’s there to get you out of trouble.” 

Kuron stops in his petting for a second, lips open just a hair’s breadth.  _ God _ … sometimes… sometimes Shiro really can’t get over how like  _ him _ he is, how in a second he can capture one of his expressions so perfectly. “Because I didn’t listen to you?” 

“Not... exactly.” 

“Then… you’re not comfortable with people knowing you have me?”

_ Yes. Absolutely. Nobody other than a narcissist would own a sexbot that looked just like them.  _ On the other hand though, if he’d gotten one that looked like someone  _ else… _ he’s pretty sure he’d feel way worse. I’d be like jacking off to pictures of a friend, except it would be so much more…  _ not  _ okay. That’s probably the one silver lining of all this, even if...

“That’s closer,” he sighs, “but not still not it. Not quite…”

“Then what?”

Shiro stiffens. How exactly is he supposed to explain it all to Kuron? Even with people outside of the paladins, he and Keith have kept most of what happened in that facility between themselves. It’s not something he wants to relive ever, even if it bubbles up in his dreams every so often, the feeling of himself overpowering Keith, pressing a searing hot blade closer and closer… The rows upon rows of identical tubes with identical faces, hundreds of  _ him _ ready to be deployed and attack...

He closes his eyes, trying to shake himself back to reality. Kuron’s watching him closely, fingers still kneading the soft fur of Kosmo’s chest. 

“It’s… it’s complicated Kuron.”

“Try me.”

Shiro sighs. Of course he couldn’t just leave it at that. He has to scrouge for something, some way to explain it without going into it at all.

“Okay, well, it might not make much sense, but just… reason with me okay. For better or worse... you look like me.”

Kuron cocks an eyebrow. “Well…  _ yeah _ . That’s the whole point of me, Mr. Shoves-stuff-up-”

“ _ I know, _ ” he grits, “ _ Trust me _ … I’m not living that down any time soon. Just… with you looking like me, there’s a lot of stuff to worry about if anyone ever sees you. Stuff like the very real likelihood my best friend might try and knock you out cold and tie you up if he saw you.”

“Is… is that what he’s into? Because-”

Shiro cuts him off. “Not that!  _ Definitely  _ not that!” His ears are burning…  _ Oh god, he’s pretty sure Keith’s not into that type of thing, at least… as far as he knew. _

“Keith and I are friends. Not _ that. _ We’ve never been that, for as long as we’ve known each other, and I doubt  _ that _ will ever happen. But… he’s protective of me, same as I am of him. If either of us thought the other was in trouble, or thought there was a threat to the other, well…” he and Kosmo exchange looks, the space wolf letting out a little whine as he licks his lips before nuzzling a little closer to Kuron. “... Let’s just say Keith’s really good with a sword. If he ever found out about you, I can’t promise the worst thing he’d do to you is scream and kick you off the bed. It could mean...” he starts, but finishing doesn’t feel right. 

_ Should it though? _ He knows in reality Kuron’s nothing but alien tech, nanobots and advanced AI that make him look and move and think the way he does, but somehow it feels like more. Kuron doesn’t feel like the droids that had kept him cloistered in his cell through his year of imprisonment. He doesn’t feel like Beezer or Rover or even Matt’s girlfriend N-7, and she was supposed to be advanced as they came, fully sarcastic and as over equipped with puns as Matt was. The way he looks right now, eyes wide, face blanched… it’s not fake, not to him. Kuron feels like a real person, feels like  _ him _ , and that’s enough for Shiro to want to keep from seeing him tackled to the ground and god knows what else. 

“I just… I don’t want to you to get hurt,” he says finally, hands falling into his lap. “And there’s a real chance of that happening until I can figure out a way to tell others about you. I know it probably doesn’t seem fair, but you just have to trust me when I say that humans can react on instinct when something scares them. And… well...” he waves a hand up and down Kuron’s body, “I think another me with both arms counts as that.”

Kuron nods slowly, fingers slipping out of Kosmo’s fur. “I… I think I get it. It’s not safe for me to be out and about until people know about me. I’ll just stay in here for now until you figure out a way to tell your friends.”

Kosmo lets out a whine and Kuron pulls his head into his lap. 

“I know boy, but we can still play here though. As soon as Shiro figures out how to tell people I promise I’ll let you take me wherever you want.”

Kosmo’s tail thumps against the floor at that, just as Shiro feels the start of a knot form in his stomach. 

_ When he tells people.  _ He hasn’t thought that far ahead, he’s not sure he can, not without the feeling of white hot shame creeping up his spine imaging the looks his crewmates will give him over this mess he’s found himself in. Even if there’s Omegas and Betas among them, there’s no way they’re not going to question him over his split second purchase of why it just so happens to look exactly like him. But… he watches as Kuron and Kosmo begin to play catch with a ball of dirty socks, knot drawing tighter. If he was going to keep Kuron around, it was only a matter of time before he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

* * *

The next morning Shiro’s up before artificial dawn, slinking out of his room and down to the gym. He’s not usually one to work out early in the mornings, usually enjoying the post-exercise endorphins far more in the late afternoon where they can carry him into a relaxing evening, but right now, he just needs to run. 

His sneakers pound on the belt of the treadmill as he jogs, sweat dripping down his neck and face as he tries to sink into the meditation of the run. Usually he can just zone out, focus only on the sound of his heartbeat and breathing, but this morning no dice. He keeps thinking about Kuron…

Kuron – for all extents Shiro can tell or decode from his instruction manual – is essentially human, at least mentally. Whatever his system is, he thinks like Shiro, seems to get restless like Shiro, and  _ definitely _ pouts the same as Shiro when he’s bored. He’d done as much last night, as Shiro went over reports, until eventually he’d set them aside and asked what he wanted to do. 

After shooting down Kuron’s suggestion of what he was meant for they’d wound up watching old movies on Shiro’s screen. They’d gone through two or three last night… he wasn’t totally sure, the second had become a blur and there was no telling if he’d woken up at the climax of that one, or the third, the skybeams and villains in those movies were all so similar he had no chance. At least it seemed like Kuron’d been into them. He’d had to stop him from putting in another, whatever number it was and go to sleep. Considering his collection, and what the other paladins had brought with them, he could probably pull out enough superhero movies to keep Kuron entertained for another few days…

Unless he got bored of them. Which he probably would, after the tenth forgettable villain made their generic evil monologue and the 14th hero made witty quips about it in the same snarky tone. 

This morning when he’d been getting dressed, he’d looked around the four walls of his room and everything seemed different, like he was seeing it for the first time. And as much as he hated to admit it… it was boring. 

He’s always kept it minimalistic, just enough for a place for him to sleep and unwind a bit before bed. There’s no books, no big TV or games system, hardly anything someone cooped up for a full day could busy themselves for the whole time with. Thinking about it now sends a pang resonating through his chest. If he’s going to keep asking Kuron to stay in there, not to show himself, he’s got to figure out something to keep him happy.

_ He’s a bot though… does he really have to- _

_ Yes,  _ Shiro grits, cranking the treadmill up to full speed.  _ Kuron’s his responsibility, whether he’d signed up for that or not. That means he needs to look after him, beyond keeping him from being tied up and interrogated. If he were a flesh and blood clone they’d rescued from that facility, he wouldn’t even be hesitating over this. Of course he should… but… _

His lungs give out for a second as his legs wobble and Shiro takes it as a sign to stop. He punches the power button and steps off the treadmill.

“Haggar’s got better things to do that plant evil cloning sexbots in mall shops. You’re being stupid…” he mumbles as he chuggs down a bottle of water. 

Saying it out loud helps, but it doesn’t fully silence the thought that there’s a 0.01% chance he’s wrong.

When he gets back to his room with a mug of coffee and a stack of toast slathered in butter and jam, Kuron’s already up. By the looks of it he’s been fiddling with Shiro’s wardrobe, there’s shirts and pants draped over almost every surface. As soon as the door slides open he perks up, a handfull of socks tumbling down onto the bed as he dashes over to great him. 

“I hope you don’t mind… I didn’t know how long you’d be gone and, well…” he waves at the rest of the room. “I might have gone a little overboard, but I ended up picking out something for you to wear today.”

He points to Shiro’s chair, where a pair of dark slacks, a tee and a leather jacket sit. A jacket who’s right arm’s already been folded up and pinned, something he still forgets to do, even now, more than a month after leaving Earth with his new arm.

“Wow…” is all that Shiro manages to get out, still not quite believing what he’s seeing and hearing. He sets down his plate and mug and takes a better look at the outfit. It’s things he wouldn’t have thought to pair together, let alone wear around the Atlas, but even he can admit its a nice choice. “You really didn’t have to.”

Kuron smiles shyly, one foot rubbing against his other shin as he looks down at his feet. He’s dressed in a pair of weathered jeans and a shirt Shiro swears he hasn’t seen in years, something he’d probably wear around his apartment on a lazy Saturday, if he was still back on Earth and not part of an intergalactic war. It looks… nice. 

“Figured I’d make myself useful, y’know? Unless… you don’t like it. Which is okay!” Kuron’s face jolts up to lie level with Shiro’s. 

“N-no!” Shiro stammers back. Fuck… he swears Kuron’s face is pink right now, or is his face always that colour too? “I like it. I’ll definitely wear it, just… after a shower. I kinda,” he lifts an arm, giving his pits a sniff, “I kinda reek right now. It’d be a shame to stink it up in the first five minutes.”

“Oh… good…” Kuron scratches his ear and sidesteps towards the bed. “I’m glad. If that’s the case, then, well… I guess I’ll start cleaning up.”

Shiro watches him pick up socks for a moment, one hand on the door handle to the bathroom. Kuron’s taking his sweet time, painstakingly folding, making sure things are lined up just so, starting again for the minorest of details, and it all clicks. 

Shiro watches several seconds more, before his hand slides of the knob. 

“Kuron?”

His double looks up, two navy socks impossibly pinched between four fingers. “Hmm?”

“Do you… do you want me to try and give you some stuff to help pass the time? I know my room’s not exactly the most exciting place to be, but I can probably get my hands on some books or a tablet connected to some of our research databases if you’d be interested.”

“Really?” Kuron’s eyes fly wide, the double rocking forwards on his knees as he stares up at Shiro with a face like sunlight peeking out from behind a cloud, almost blinding in the dim lights of his room. 

“Y-yeah…” Shiro stammers. He only has a few things loaded on his tablet right now outside of secure data, but the galactic encyclopedias and star charts should be enough to keep Kuron entertained, at least for an hour or two.  _ More than a few hours _ , he thinks, remembering how long Kuron’d wanted to stay in the observatory. “I’ve got a datapad in my dresser, I’m pretty sure I’ll still have some time to show you how to use it before I have to go. It can be a little tricky to get the starmap projection to work right.”

“There’s a star map? That you can… it fills up the room? Really?”

“Y-yeah… really…”  _ Crap… the look Kuron’s giving him right now could give puppies a run for their money. _ “Just let me shower really quick.”

He’s in and out with lightning speed, hair still dripping as he tugs on the shirt and pants Kuron’d picked out for him. Usually he’d change in his bedroom, but, well…

_ It’s not like what I have is anything different than what he can see in the mirror.  _ The thought comes to him as he’s tugging up the slacks, water from his hair already soaking through the thin white of the t-shirt and making it sheer. Kuron probably wasn’t the type to body shame, and with his frame of reference being only himself… well… Shiro realized he was probably being silly. 

When he steps back out into his room, towel draped around his shoulders, its to find Kuron eyeballing his toast. Suddenly, Shiro thinks back to yesterday, and the question he’s forgotten to ask this whole time.

“Kuron?”

“Mmm?” his eyes are still locked on the toast.

“Do you need to eat?”

Kuron blinks, looking almost disoriented before he manages to shift his gaze back to Shiro. 

“Well… I don’t  _ need _ to. I can recharge pretty well just by sleeping and letting my energy cells rest in the night. It’s how we can keep working, even after being in storage. But…” his eyes flick back to the bread. “I mean… I can ingest things. And get energy from them. After all, I couldn’t exactly be a fully attentive partner if I couldn’t-”

“Got it!  _ Got it! _ ” Shiro cuts him off before Kuron can slip into talking about how well he can take a cum shot. “You don’t need food to survive, good to know. That… that makes things a little easier.” He fumbles with his belt loops, fingers drumming against his legs. “But… do you  _ want _ to?”

Kuron goes quiet for a second, and Shiro wonders if he’s done something wrong. He’s not trying to force Kuron to do something he doesn’t want, but… he’s been staring at that toast and jam an awful lot, and he  _ can  _ just go back to the kitchens and get himself another slice.

“I don’t hav-”

“But if you  _ want _ to…” Shiro steps forwards, and Kuron slinks back from the table. 

“It’s yours, you’re human, you need it more than-”

Shiro places the plate in Kuron’s hands, his clone’s eyes as big as saucers as he steps back. 

“I already had a slice.  _ Plus _ -” he says, cutting off Kuron before he can protest again, “-it’s my fault I didn’t ask you about this sooner. The least I can do is let you have this. It’s not much, but, hey… Hunk makes really good jam.”

Kuron stares at him, and for a second Shiro swears he’s about to cry. His heartbeat skips, he’s ready to reach out, to hug-

“Thank you…”

It’s so soft, but somehow that makes it ring even longer in his ears, the gentle sound of his own voice, but in a way he’s never heard himself before. It feels younger… more innocent. 

The urge to hug is still very much there, but Shiro restrains himself as Kuron picks up a slice and gives it a little sniff. 

“You’re…. You’re welcome,” he mumbles, face hidden by his hand. He watches as Kuron takes a tiny bite, followed by several more. Shiro’s instantly reminded of videos of dogs or cats or babies trying foods for the first time and their reactions to tasting sugar for the first time. Just… pure, unbridled happiness, mixed with a look that shows how much they’re savouring each lick and crumb. 

It’s only when Kuron looks up at him, last quarter of the toast between his teeth that he realizes he’s been staring. 

“Y’okay?” Kuron says, muffled by bread.

Shiro jerks, hands scrabbling for something to occupy them. 

“Y-yeah! Just zoned out for a sec! Do you… you still want me to show you how to use the datapad?”

Kuron nods with a Herculean swallow, eyes still twinkling with sugar high. “If you have time, yeah, that’d be great.”

“Great. Just… let me grab it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That feel when you realize what a good boy your Kuron is and you'd do anything to protecc


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the break in posting, I was at a wedding this weekend and just got a chance to sit down with a computer for the first time in days just now. Thanks for waiting and hope you enjoy!

They’ve settled into… a surprisingly comfortable routine the past couple days. Shiro’ll wake up early, hit the Atlas’s gym to exercise, then return back to his room with breakfast for Kuron before anyone else on the ship’s even up. The usual hour he’d spend in the gym is now time in the morning he spends with Kuron, chatting and figuring out what books or things he wants to do in the day before he inevitably has to leave for meetings or diplomatic missions. 

He’ll stop in at lunch with an extra sandwich or something for Kuron. They’re never long chunks of time, but they seem to be appreciated all the same. Sometimes Kuron’s alone, other times Kosmo is with him, the two of them either spread out in a pile on Shiro’s bed or floor lazing about, or playing (there was one horribly memorable time when they’d been in the middle of tug of war with one of his favourite pairs of sweatpants). Once or twice he’d even found him napping, and Shiro’d been forced to wrestle with the guilt of waking him up or letting him sleep. And then of course were the afternoons and evenings. Depending on what was needed of him, Shiro’d either set aside the evening or part of the afternoon to be with Kuron, under some pretense of paperwork or meditation or exhaustion. He felt like he owed that much to Kuron after all… He’d accepted Shiro’s hesitance and delay in trying to come up with a way to tell everyone about the duplicate of himself he was keeping secret in his room with unwavering trust that the thought of leaving him alone longer than necessary made guilt pool in Shiro’s gut.

That wasn’t to say Shiro still didn’t feel guilty for other things. He knew the paladins were catching on to his sudden behaviour changes, Keith even more than the others. The other night Keith’d asked him if he wanted to spend some time just the two of them after dinner… but he’d already… well, he’d already spent the entire day out on missions and reconnaissance… he hadn’t even checked in on Kuron once. What was he supposed to do? Still… it didn’t make the way Keith’s face fell any easier to take. He’d spent the better part of that night distracted as he and Kuron watched a movie, trying desperately in vain to come up with ways to explain his sudden distance to his best friend. 

He’s still trying to come up with the right way to break the news of Kuron to Keith the next day as he’s carrying a canteen of soup and tub of salad back to his room. 

“So… you know how we thought all the clones were destroyed? Well… I kind of accidentally made another one.” 

_ No… that would immediately put Keith on high alert, thinking that Kuron was one of Haggar’s clones… _

“So you know N-7, Matt’s partner? How they’re an android and all? It turns out there’s a whole lot more variety and long story short, I-”

_ No… that wasn’t great either. It felt too fabricated, Keith’d just think that was more suspicious than the real truth. _

Shiro groans as he rounds a corner. “Okay, okay. You know how I’m an Omega, right? And how there are certain  _ needs-” _

“What kind of needs?”

Shiro whips around so fast the canteen of soup goes flying, arcing through the air and landing on the floor with a denting  _ thump _ before rolling right between the feet of-

“ _ Pidge _ ,” he gasps. “How much did you hear?”

She shrugs as she plucks the canteen off the floor, polishing it with her sleeve. “Enough, as in enough to know that despite you being almost a decade older than me you’re still embarrassed over regular body functions.”

Shiro blinks. “What?”

“Shiro…” Pidge says with a roll of her eyes, “c’mon… I just heard you practicing the whole embarrassed Omega justifying heat aids or mood swings thing. No one cares, at least, no one that matters. You don’t have to try and explain yourself to some Beta or Alpha why you do something they don’t get.”

“How did… how do you know?”

She snorts, handing back the canteen, “ _ Please… _ after spending enough time in space with you all, you think I haven’t had to deal with Hunk asking me or Lance for cuddles when he’s in pre-heat, or Keith trying to justify why he needs space as an  _ Alpha thing _ , or you outright denying why you’re acting off because a Beta like me isn’t supposed to understand? Seriously… it’s like Omegas and Alphas forget us Betas go through both of your mood swing patterns way more erratically than you ever do. Just because we’re not you doesn’t mean we can’t empathize and relate to what you’re going through, so if you’re trying to explain to Keith or Lance or I don’t know… Kolivan why they walked in on you going to town on a toy th-”

Shiro nearly drops the thermos again. 

“It’s fine Shiro,” Pidge chuckles, hands raised in front of her. “You’ll tell us when you’re ready. But if whatever it is  _ isn’t _ food poisoning like Lance says it is-”

“It’s really not…” he groans.

“Then that should mean you’ll be in good enough shape to celebrate Dad’s birthday with the rest of us.”

“Wait,” Shiro frowns. “You want me there? I thought your mom said it was just going to be a small thing with family.”

“Well… yeah, she  _ did _ say that _ ,  _ but you know that was just mom making it so dad’ll actually show. He hates being fussed over, but seeing as this is the first year in a while we’ve all been together, and on a ship he built…” she grins one of those maniacal Holt sibling grins, “we’re going to make it a huge freaking deal. Don’t clue dad in.”

Shiro can’t help but chuckle. Sam definitely wasn’t going to be pleased at first, but he’d hardly be able to say no once he was ambushed with the better part of a hundred friends and colleagues. “Alright, alright, I’ll be there.”

“Don’t forget, 14:00 at the training deck. We’ll bring him out of the small room there and into the gym when the timing’s right.”

“14:00, got it. See you then!”

“And don’t forget to bring comfy clothes! Matt’s organizing party games!”

Shiro groans as Pidge disappears around the bend. Matt was notorious for bad party games. Bad being that he went way too overboard and turned what should be a few calm activities to pass the time into an all out tournament to the death for the title of champion, with a decent half of the games only describable as the fever dreams of a toddler overlord. It has him looking forward to his hour off with Kuron even more than he already was.

Kuron’s up and awake when he arrives, dressed in a long sleeve shirt and joggers. Kosmo’s splayed over his lap, tongue lolling out in time with Kuron’s scratching of his ears, tablet propped on the wolf’s shaggy back. He smiles up as Shiro as he enters, giving the thermos and tupperware of greens an appreciative look, but doesn’t get up, settling back into whatever he had open on the tablet. 

“Something interesting there?” Shiro asks, worming his way onto the bed with a cup of soup for each of them. 

Kuron hums, pushing Kosmo back a bit until Shiro’s able to sit down beside him. “Yes? No? But it’s nice all the same.” He hands the tablet over to Shiro in exchange for a mug, drinking far faster than Shiro and his sensitive tongue ever will. He gives his own soup a little puff of air and turns to what Kuron’d had open.

To his surprise, it’s not star charts, or galactic encyclopedias, or even one of the few bad pulp novels he has on there, but the photo album. Shiro’s never been great with taking pictures his whole life, but since he’s come back from the astral plane he’s been trying to get better at documenting the things that matter. Not diplomatic press conferences, but the things he knows he’ll miss most of all, stuff like Allura’s entire arm covered in butter the time Hunk tried to teach her to make shortbread, or a snapshot of a quiet lake they managed to stop at for an afternoon.

“It’s okay, right? Me looking?” Shiro glances up to Kuron looking at him over the rim of his mug. “I know you mainly gave me this for reading and stuff, but I ended up getting curious.”

Shiro nods slowly, swiping through them one by one. Even if it’s a little weird for someone to go through your phone roll, it’s not like he has anything to hide. Aside from the occasional bad shot used to check a mole or bad shave job everything in it could easily be in one of his grandmother’s photo albums. There were a bunch of shots of Earth, the garrison, his old room and the likes. He pauses for a second at the photo of his first burger in years, a greasy truck stop abomination that had been worth the eight hour food coma, before continuing on.

“Wait, that’s Keith, right?” Kuron points to a photo of him and Kosmo, the two of them sleeping curled up on the floor of a hangar. Shiro’d taken that a week after Keith’d gotten out of the hospital, right after the first time Keith’d managed to talk him into sparring together. He’d fallen asleep right after, even if to this day he’d keep protesting he was just resting his eyes for a second. 

“Yeah…” The corners of his eyes crinkle as he swipes to the next one. “I’ve known him for years now. Bright as can be, but it seems like I was the only one that realized it at the start. There’s a lot about his friendship that I’m grateful for.”  _ So, so grateful _ , beyond anything he could have ever expected. “Even after everything we both went through, he never gave up on me. Oh, these are the others...”

He pauses on a photo of the other paladins, the full pack of five of them all making cheesy poses except for Keith, who’s standing in the middle looking at Pidge like he’s two seconds behind the punchline with the rest of them. On the next photo he’s also struck a pose like some kind of anime villain. 

“Those are Hunk, Lance, Pidge, and Allura. And the guy with the mustache is Coran.” Kuron nods as he points each of them out, slurping chunks of chicken and noodles from his cup as he gets to the bottom of his broth.

“And they’re all the friends you’ve been talking about?” 

“Yep. I have more on board, but I guess these guys are the closest to me right now.”

Kuron makes a gargantuan swallow and takes the tablet from Shiro just as he swipes to another of Keith and the Alteans sprawled out on a couch together at the end of one of Lance’s movie marathons. He pans slowly over the faces, smiling as he notices how Romelle’s hair’s been draped over her face in a copy of Coran’s moustache. “They seem fun. I can’t wait to meet them.” He moves on, the pad of his index finger runs over the scar on Keith’s cheek and Shiro feels a pang. 

Suddenly it’s too much. He can imaging Kuron’s excitement over being introduced to everyone, but then… His lips squeeze together, eyes still locked on the scar that mars Keith’s face. But then there was  _ that _ , and that was the last thing he’d ever want to do to Keith. Not again. Not ever. Kuron touching it, looking at it with that worried look somehow makes it worse, because he  _ knows _ this copy never would, but still… did he know? And more importantly, would anyone else believe him?

“Is this from when he was a kid, or…” Kuron starts, but he trails off, noticing Shiro’s no longer looking at it. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling sick? Is it the photos? Is it too much? Because we can stop if you want.” A hand reaches out towards Shiro’s side in readiness. 

Shiro shakes his head, but he lets Kuron’s arm rest against him all the same. He’s being weird, and he knows it, but there’s no point in upsetting Kuron. “No. No… it’s okay. You can keep going, I was just… thinking about something.”

Kuron gives him a worried look, but if there’s anything else going on in there behind those eyes he keeps it inside. He does however, switch tabs on Shiro’s datapad, pulling up a video compilation of cats in hats. Shiro knows it’s for him, but if Kuron’s smile is anything to go off of, he’s enjoying it too. 

He’s really too good honestly. Kuron’s figured out the right amount of distance and closeness Shiro likes in the few days he’s been around. He seems to know when it’s okay to press and when it’s better to just let things go and silence to drift between them. And he’s been so good about the whole not being seen thing. Outside of a late night or two where Shiro’s snuck him out with the Atlas’s help back to the observation deck he’s stayed in his room without a fuss. Really, he should figure out a way to show him his gratitude. Maybe he could convince Hunk to make mac and cheese so Kuron could finally try it, or see if there was a time tonight when he could tour Kuron around the teleduv or some other parts of the ship.

As a kitten rolls around on the floor, trying to get a party hat off it’s back, it comes to him. 

Sam’s party. Everyone’s going to be there. Which means…

Shiro swallows.  _ It’s a bit of a risk, but really… if they’re careful… _

“Hey, Kuron?” he says.

His clone looks up, mouth stuffed full of lettuce. “M’yeh?”

"You want to explore the ship a little?"

Kuron swallows in a rush, eyes glinting with an extra twinkle of life. “Of course! I mean... if that’s okay. It’d be tonight, when everyone’s gone to sleep, right?”

“Actually… I was thinking maybe sooner. As in, in an hour or two.”

Kuron licks a crumb off his cheek, eyeing Shiro suspiciously. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean… you made it sound like if anyone saw the two of us together, bad things would happen. Wouldn’t it just be safer to wait until night, or until you tell everyone? Not that I’m saying no, I’d definitely love to check out the agriculture deck, or the engine room when they’re actually lit. If that’d be okay… I know not everywhere’s safe right now, and we have to be careful and-”

“You’re not wrong,” Shiro cuts gently. “Usually it’s not a good idea, but today there’s an event going on. It means a lot of people who’d be spread out over the ship’ll be elsewhere, and their posts left alone. Maybe not the engine room or the bridge, but the science deck almost definitely.”

Kuron’s gone quiet, mouth hanging slightly open as he stares at Shiro. 

“That includes the agriculture lab.”

Kuron nods dumbly. “I… I know… But… it’d be okay? You’re not worried about someone seeing two of you?”

He scratches his head. “That’s the thing… it wouldn’t be both of us going there. I sort of agreed to go to the thing, which means it’d be just you.”

“Just… me?”

Shiro nods. 

“Are you sure?”

He nods again, a little slower, but with a smile to match. There’s some squirming going on in his stomach, but unlike dread or anxiety it feels lighter, almost a flutter of sorts. A good kind of nervous. “Pretty dang sure. I mean, you’ll have to stick to the hallways people aren’t as likely to use, and make sure you come back well before it’s supposed to finish, but if you’re careful, and don’t let anyone see you or your right arm I think we’ll be okay.”

Kuron’s lips purse. He’s thinking it over, Shiro knows, counting the checks and balances to see if everything lines up, even if someone’s already told him they do. It’s what he’d do after all.

“It’s still a little risky… what would happen if someone walked in on me?”

“Uh…” Shiro scans the room, looking for some kind of answer, when a large yawn comes from overtop of his knees. 

“Kosmo!” Shiro grins. “You could, uh, take Kosmo with you, if he doesn’t wander off looking for Keith. I’m pretty sure he’d know to teleport you away if anyone came closer.”

There’s a noticeable drain of tension in Kuron’s shoulders as he reaches down to pet the space wolf once again. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. You’ll look after me, won’t you boy?”

Kosmo lets out a quiet  _ ‘harumph _ ’ of acknowledgement and buts Kuron’s hand for more pets. 

“Well… I think that’s your answer,” he chuckles. “How about I show you on a map the places to go and avoid before I have to head out again.”

“Yes please.”

As Kuron plucks up the tablet and begins sorting through the tabs for the Atlas map, Shiro leans in close to Kosmo. 

“Seriously… don’t let anyone see him. Especially Keith. I’ll tell everyone about him eventually, so just… in the meantime, don’t blow this for me.”

Exhausted. That’s it. That’s the only way to describe what he’s feeling right now, retreating from Sam’s party. 

True to form, Matt’s games had been brutal. Somewhere in that mad genius brain of his (and no doubt from part of his sister’s as well) he’d concocted a full on gauntlet of challenges for the right to pie Sam and a person of his choosing in the face. Shiro’d played for the sake of it for the first few. After the third though, he was going all out with the express intent of smashing a nice fat plateful of bananas and whipping cream into his friend’s face. 

He’d won that privilege, _thank_ _god_, but that didn’t mean Matt hadn’t taken the chance to rub his cream covered face all over Shiro’s head in mock desperation for mercy. He’s pretty sure there’s a bit of banana in his ear and still a hefty load of cream streaked through his hair, even if he’d gotten the worst of it off his face and neck. 

He’s so ready to just sink into a nice hot bath and let the ache of his muscles ebb away. The push-up contest had been one thing, but following an obstacle course with a 200 sit-up challenge had been pure evil. He’s already feeling the prickling of muscle cramps forming in his abs, and on a day where he’d already worked on legs and core too. 

“Well, at least I can skip out tomorrow if I want,” he groans, tapping the door lock to his room. Time to freshen up, put on some fresh clothes, and loaf around with Kuron for a bit until it was time for dinner. Fuck… he was lookign forward to it. Just lying on the bed, eyes half closed, listening to what Kuron’d gotten up to while he was gone.

Or he was, right up until the moment his door swung open. 

Kuron… Kuron was sitting in the middle of the room, covered in dirt and locked in a war over a bathmat with an equally grimy Kosmo. A Kosmo that, as Kuron tries to wrestle the mat back from him, begins to shake. Not a nervous shake, but a full body shake, one Shiro knew far too well from every dog he’d ever seen at the beach or coming out from the rain. A shake that even as he lunges to stop it, he know’s there’s no use, not when fur’s already flying, mud and dirt going everywhere, onto floor and walls and  _ oh god were those  _ ** _pawprints _ ** _ on his bedspread? _

“No,  _ nonononono! _ ” He yells, trying to shield his room from more dirt by flinging himself over the wolf. He gets a faceful of earthy fur and a whip’s sting on the back of his neck as Kuron lets go of the bathmat, now dangling from the mouth of a very still and very startled Kosmo. 

Kuron’s lunging to check on him before he can even pull away, using the mat still locked in Kosmo’d jaws to wipe the worst of it off his face. “I’m so sorry Shiro! We were in the agriculture lab playing, and he got really excited and was running around and he knocked over a bag of dirt, and then he poofed us back here still all worked up and they next thing I knew he was running all over the place grabbing things and… well...” he huffs as he finished mopping the worst of the dirt of Shiro’s face and focusing on the rest of him now, Kosmo finally releasing it from his grip as he lays down. “Well, you pretty much came right in after that.”

If he looks more carefully now around the room there’s his slippers on top of the bookcase instead of under the bed beside a stack of roughly piled paperwork and shirts. Blankets and pillows have been thrown onto the desk too. Kuron’s doing, of course. Keeping as much as he could out of Kosmo’s path before trying to calm him down. 

“Looks like you had things under control,” he says slowly.

“Maybe under control isn’t the perfect description. More like, trying to control it?”

Shiro breathes a sigh of relief as he spies his garrison uniform poking out from under the blankets, pressed white looking unmarked from here. “Well, seems to me like you did a pretty good job of it. As for you,” he pouts down at Kosmo, who’s now licking at the dirt on his paws. “Do you always give Keith this much trouble or is it just me?”

Kosmo’s unearthly golden eyes lock with his for a second with a look of pure sass, before the wolf up and teleports away. 

“I think he’s not even going to honour that with an answer,” Kuron snickers, eyes running up and down Shiro. He spots the dodgeball sting marks on Shiro’s arm. “What happened to you? It looks like you went through some kind of battle. And is that…” he leans closer, “is that… something white in your hair? It smells like-”

“It’s a long story,” he sighs, body begging to be scalded with how water. “I can tell it to you now if you want, but honestly all I can think about is taking a shower. You okay to wait until after? I mean…” he waves a hand up and down at his clone. “You look like you could use one yourself.”

Kuron pauses. He seems to look at himself for the first time, the streaks of mud that stripe his arms and the smudges of it on his pants. 

“What did you two even do? Roll around in the flower beds?”

“Not… quite…” Kuron laughs nervously. “I’ll tell you about it, but I guess after we both clean up. Or…” His eyes widen, mouth hanging open just so. “Or… we could tell each other about what happened together, in the shower.”

“In the what now?” Shiro asks, brain coming to a screeching halt. 

“Shower,” Kuron smiles, standing up. “Unless you’d rather take a bath. I’d be alright to do that too, though it might be a little small with the both of us in there. I guess we’d just have to get cozy, that’s all.”

_ What what what what?! _ Kuron’s still talking about it, but sound’s draining away from Shiro’s world, his brain narrowing in to tunnel vision as he goggles up at Kuron.  _ A bath? Together? But… _ But he has to remind himself it’s not like bathing with someone else. Kuron’s effectively him. There’s not anything new there. It should be okay… it shouldn’t be weird…

And then Kuron rips off his shirt and Shiro realizes that  _ no, no… this is  _ ** _definitely_ ** _ weird _ . 

Maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t dated anyone in years now. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a bit pent up after three days of not being able to find the time to jack off with Kuron here, or maybe it’s just the sheer surprise of it all, but Shiro’s not ready for him to strip in front of him. 

It’s the casual ease of how his arms cross in front of his navel, the way his fingers knot in the hem of his shirt. It’s how he peels it back so fluidly, like it’s a liquid rolling off his body into the air, and the slow coil and arch of his back as he bends to aid it’s sliding off his skin, revealing inch after inch of muscled stomach. He shouldn’t be staring at it the way he is right now, it’s  _ his body _ , but right now that’s the furthest thing from his mind. He just can’t focus on anything else other than Kuron taking off his top, staring like he’s teenager stumbling over porn for the first time. 

He manages to catch the fact his jaw’s hanging open before Kuron manages to shake his hair out and look back at him, and  _ thank god for that _ because he’s pretty sure he’d never live it down. Kuron’s still talking, something about starting the tap, but Shiro’s eyes are locking in to where his thumb is trailing down to the waistband of his pants and  _ this is way too much way too fast _ -

“Actually!” he cut, jumping to his feet and making Kuron take a step back in surprise. “I just remembered I need to… uh…” he searches his stupid molasses speed brain, trying to keep himself from staring at where Kuron’s thumb’s still hooked in his waistband, tugging it down. “Check in on something for dinner! Yeah! That’s it! If I go early enough I can put in a request. Cause I have one. A request.”  _ Fuck, he’s stammering and can’t stop himself _ . He needs to get away from this and reboot his brain, and  _ fast.  _

“I’m… I’m going to have to pass today,” he manages to blurt out between bouts of internal screaming, booking it towards the door as fast as he can manage. Kuron’s staring at him and his limbs are protesting the fact they’re not parallel to the floor right now, but he needs all his focus on finding the door latch before he starts starting at his shirtless clone again. “Maybe another time?” he squeaks, and before Kuron can say anything he’s whipping out the door. 

Straight into Keith.

They both jump back, Keith almost falling flat on his ass but somehow managing to recover at the last moment. He’s covered in dirt and blotches of damp, hair tied back in a messy ponytail, and for a second Shiro’s still gutter brained head thinks about  _ him _ stripping off in front of him. 

_ Fuck… what was wrong with him today? _

“Sh-Shiro!” Keith yells, gripping his chest. “Holy fuck! You came out of nowhere.”

“Y-yeah…” he stammers. “Sorry about that. Are you-” he waves a hand up and down, “are you okay? What happened?”

Keith shoots him a look and Shiro can’t ward off the prickle of fear tickling the base of his spine.

“ _ Someone  _ let Kosmo into Colleen’s lab. The one place on this whole ship that has dirt and manure and smelly plants which they should  _ know _ is a recipe for disaster letting him get near, but  _ noooo _ ,  _ someone _ went and let him in even though I’ve always forbidden him and now he’s gone and dug up Colleen’s beds and gone and rolled in all the new smells there. And  _ then _ he had to go and track it all over my room! My sheets are totally ruined and there’s dirt everywhere and now Pidge’s mom is calling me to come down and clean up her lab because he’s  _ ‘my wolf’ _ . Like he’s anyone’s! He’s his own wolf!”

If there’s anything that could make Shiro forget his reaction to Kuron just now faster than the white-hot guilt rushing through him, he’s at a loss for what it is right now.

“Is… is that so?” He licks his lips, heart pounding in his ears for an entirely different reason than a few seconds ago. There’s no way Keith should be able to tie Kosmo’s path of destruction back to him, not without knowing Kuron had taken him down there, and he’s got an alibi, Sam’s party, but still… it  _ is _ his fault. He… he should really help out, even if all he wants to do is collapse on his bed right now. “Do you… do you want some help cleaning up?”

Keith blinks, almost confused. “You’d be okay with that? I mean-”

“Yes!” Shiro interjects, conscious riding heavy on his shoulder thinking about the state of his own room right now and the clone in it. “If it’s as bad as you make it sound it’s not a one person job. Please, let me at least help you with Colleen’s lab.”

Keith contemplates him for a moment, steely blue eyes boring into Shiro as he seems to dig deep for some type of answer Shiro’s not sure he has. In seconds that look is gone though, whisked away by a shrug of Keith’s shoulders as he turns heel. He’s already several yards down the hall before he turns to look back at Shiro.

“You coming or not?”

\---

He’s not sure if it’s better or worse than what he was envisioning, but the mess Kosmo and Kuron left behind was definitely a two person job. Sure, it really only had been two beds that Kosmo had managed to get into, and really only half the plants in each he’d crushed rolling around in, but the ripped bag of potting soil and smell of fresh fertilizer wafting from parts of the room where it definitely shouldn’t be was still mess enough. It takes the two of them the better part of half an hour to tackle most of it, and despite the continued burn of his exhausted muscles he’s glad he’s helping Keith. 

He’ll sleep well tonight alright.

The bulk of the time they clean in silence, Shiro taking care of most of the mess outside of the boxes while Keith deals with fixing what’s in them. Outside of a few directions and complaints to one another, it’s quiet. Almost too quiet. Usually silences are comfortable with Keith, but right now there’s this pressure underneath that makes the hairs of Shiro’s arms slowly stand more and more on end. Keith’s an Alpha, and no matter how close of friends they are there’s no ignoring the air he’s giving off right now, like there’s something bubbling right below the surface. It puts him on edge, ready for an attack, even if here, on the Atlas with Keith is the furthest he could be from one.

It could just be his frustration over cleaning all of this up, but something tells Shiro it’s not. When Keith’s stewing with anger it’s always more of a cold fury, his usual aura almost more contained than it already is as he works to keep it under control. This isn’t that. There’s the occasional grunt of annoyance whenever he finds another crushed plant, but that’s as close as he comes. No… Keith’s exuding waves off himself. Something he almost never does unless he’s anxious. But they’re different, muddled. Normally Shiro knows how to read them, knows how long to let Keith be alone with his thoughts and know when to step in and talk, but this confusing mix has him hesitating. He keeps debating whether or not he should say something. It’s been way too long since either of them have spoken to launch into casual small talk, but something about the air right now tells him he needs to hold off. So he does. He keeps on mopping and picking up leaves off the floor in silence as Keith toils on behind him.

He’s almost done mopping when Keith breaks the silence. 

“I’m sorry.”

Shiro whips around to stare at him, mouth hanging open, tongue dry.

“You’re… sorry?”

“Yeah.” Keith lets out one of those self-deprecating breaths of his that make Shiro’s bones ache. “I am.” 

“But… why?”

Keith shakes his head. “I know I shouldn’t have jumped the whole thing on you without warning. It was stupid of me, but…” his fingers clench in the soil. “I don’t know… you’ve just felt different lately? Distant? Like you’re only half here. And then earlier… the way you looked. I know I made you uncomfortable, I could see it all over your face.”

Shiro almost drops the mop. He’d looked… uncomfortable to Keith? Sure, almost crashing into him had startled him, and then finding out he’d single handedly let Kosmo loose in the one place he wasn’t supposed to be and all the blame had been pinned on Keith for it… he’d definitely been feeling  _ guilty…  _ but  _ uncomfortable? _

“I didn’t think- you saw that?”

Keith snorts. “Please Shiro, I’ve known you for years. You don’t think I can’t pick up on a few of your tells?”

_ Hopefully not all of them,  _ he thinks with a squeezing of his throat. “I really didn’t think it came across like that. I really wasn’t-”

“But you were…” sighs Keith, eyes cast down on the crushed bunch of chives in front of him. “And it’s my fault. I knew I was probably crossing the line then, but-”

“What are you talking about?” Shiro’s heartbeat is mounting, but why he’s not exactly sure. What had Keith done? What had he said? The past few days had been such a blur of balancing his normal life and Kuron that he was having trouble teasing out the conversations they’d had lately. There’d been the one just before, and then… and then…

_ What had there been? _ Usually he’d properly spend time with Keith every day or so, but lately…

Lately he’d been with Kuron.

Keith’s looking at him, those deep-space purple eyes of his darker than before. “I… I’m worried about you Shiro.” The way he says it is quiet, barely traveling further than the bubble that surrounds them both. “You’ve been distant all week… spacey… I figured it was just some bug or something you’d shake in a couple days, but you haven’t. It’s like you’ve been avoiding us,  _ all of us _ , and even when you’re there you’re not  _ really  _ there.”

“I…” Shiro gulps. “I can explain…”

“And then today… well, today…” Keith’s lips purse together, eyebrows knitting tight. “Today it’s even worse, you don’t remember things that happened just yesterday. There’s stuff I know you should know and you don’t. It’s… it’s like you’re forgetting parts of who you are. Shiro…” Keith’s voice cracks and a piece of it lodges in Shiro’s chest. “Are… are you… slipping away?”

The handle of the mop clatters to the floor.

“Shiro!” Keith bolts towards him, he’s in front of him in a blink of an eye, hands going to support the sides of Shiro’s face as his mouth falls open. 

He…  _ Keith thinks... _

“Shiro! Are you… are you alright?”

No he’s not. He’s shaken. This entire week he’s been acting different, enough to make Keith worry. No,  _ way _ more than worry. He’s been distant enough for Keith to think he’s fading, that his grip on the physical world is failing.

“I… Why? Why do you think that?” he whispers.

“Allura and I have been talking,” Keith says, thumb stroking Shiro’s cheek as he looks away. “She… she said there’s a chance that you could still reject it. The body. It’s slim, but still… we have no idea how you finally caught hold. For all we know it’s just a second wind that’s going to die down.”

“Keith…”

“So that’s why,” Keith croaks. “That’s why… iif you are, you need to tell us. You need to tell me! We can... I don’t know what we can do, but we can try! Maybe there’s still another clone who’s body that survived the wreck. Maybe we could find it. Maybe-”

Shiro claps his hands onto Keith’s cheeks, temple resting against his crown as he pulls the boy close to him. 

“Keith…” he breathes. He has to comfort him, he has to calm him down, to stop these worries from eating him alive like they must have been for god knows how long. Without even realizing it he’s gone and hurt Keith, and now he has to fix it. He holds him tight, willing calm from every pore of his body, feeling every breath flow through Keith until slowly the Alpha’s breathing falls in rhythm with his own. “Keith, I’m so sorry.” 

“But-”

“ _ No _ ,” he sucks in, “no… you don’t get to be sorry. You don’t have a reason to be. I’ve been the one acting strange and distant this week, not you. I should have been the one to apologize first. It’s not your fault I’ve been this way. It’s no one’s fault except mine,” he says bitterly. Because it is. Everything happening in his life right now is because of rash decisions he’s made. 

Keith makes like he’s about to speak, but he’s not done. 

“And don’t you ever start convincing yourself I’m dying or fading or whatever else keeps you up at night. I’m okay…. I’m just…” he deflates. “I’m just trying to come to terms with some things right now.” 

There’s a movement and a sniffle as Keith wipes his nose on his sleeve. “You’re… you’re really okay? You’ve never acted like this before, not even when you were… well… when you weren’t yourself.”

They both let out a wet chuckle at that.

“Yeah,” Shiro sighs, settling more into a hug. “I’m okay. I’m not dying. There’s just…” a lump catches in his throat, “ _ stuff _ I’m trying to figure out how to deal with right now. Stuff I didn’t think I’d ever have to even think about, but I am.”

“Do you need help?”

He bites his cheek. “No. I think I can manage on my own. It’s… it’s something I have to figure out for myself. But I promise… as soon as I do, you’ll be the first to know about it.”

Keith pulls back and Shiro takes his first real look at him in some time. The tip of his nose is pink, eyes a smidge larger looking than usual, but other than that there’s no sign of moments ago. He sighs, short fingers running through the crop of Shiro’s hair. 

“You promise?”

He really needs to tell him. He needs to talk it over with Kuron and just rip the band-aid off. No more procrastinating, no more hiding things. Tomorrow he’s going to tell him everything. 

“Promise.”

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again!

“God bless Hunk.”

Shiro’s spread out across the floor, hair damp, clothes clean, with a bowl of mac and cheese on his stomach. He doesn’t even have the energy to care about proper table manners right now, he’s so relaxed after a nice hot soak that the idea of doing anything more strenuous than spooning hot cheesey pasta into his mouth is too much to ask. 

Kuron smiles at him from across the room as he carefully guides another piping spoonful to his mouth, a bowl of chili balanced between his knees. Comfort food night didn’t come often on the Altas, but Shiro was damn glad it’d happened today. 

“S’that good?”

“You have no idea.” He sucks another spoonful into his mouth, letting the cheese and noodles sink into his tongue before chewing. “It’s just carby, creamy, cheesy goodness. It’s like all the best parts of childhood in one big messy bowl. And that’s just mac and cheese in general, not even Hunk’s.” He swallows another bite and sighs. “I swear... it’s better than sex it’s that good, there’s just something he does when he makes it that makes it  _ that much  _ better.” 

Kuron lets out a little snort. “Well, you’re definitely doing a good job of selling it. Do you think-”

“Oh! Of course!” Shiro drags himself upright. “I was craving it so bad I forgot I’d gotten extra to share with you. Here.”

Kuron takes the offered bowl, carefully setting his chili aside. He inspects the mix with carefully, the lava flows of cheese erupting from the mountain of macaroni, spoon set between his lips as he does. “So this is your favourite food.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” He pouts, elbowing Kuron a little for good measure so he knows it’s a joke.

“No… nothing wrong. It’s just…” Kuron taps his spoon against his bottom lip. “It’s just… nice to be able to share it with you. The way you talk about it, the weight it has in your vocabulary… I know how much it means to you.”

Shiro’s cheeks warm as Kuron finally slides his spoon in for a bite. “When you say it like that it sounds super intimate or something.”

The spoon stops milimeters from Kuron’s lips as he looks at Shiro in confusion. “Well, isn’t it? Being able to share the things that are special to you with something, isn’t that something special in itself?”

“I… I never really thought of it like that.” And he hadn’t, but now, after Kuron saying as much he can’t help but watch closely as Kuron’s lips part and the mouthful disappears between them.

Its slow, almost painfully so, watching him for those first few seconds. Every last one seems to tick on for hours as he waits for something, any indication of what Kuron’s feeling right now. He’s trying to picture it right now, how it’s hitting his tastebuds, how it’s rolling around on his tongue. How the cheese slowly spreads out across his entire mouth, exploring it until there’s not a speck that doesn’t know it’s there. Shiro can almost taste it himself now, that perfect nostalgic taste that takes him right back… something he just wants to sink into. His eyelids flutter, lashes lowering as he lets himself sink into it… just as Kuron does the same

“ _ Mmmmmm-” _

It’s long and low, a rumbling hum that starts in Kuron’s chest and reverberates through his own. He can  _ feel _ what’s going on inside Kuron right now as if it were happening for him, but that’s not enough. He needs more, and so Shiro forces his eyes open and watches as Kuron chews. It’s a slow, savouring tempo, and Shiro can taste just how much Kuron’s enjoying every second of it, letting himself lean into every note, high and low in that bite. There’s a pure, raw pleasure to it, and he doesn’t even have to wait for Kuron to speak to know what he’s going to say. He knows it well before tips back his head and swallows, adam’s apple bobbing as his eyes finally crack open once again. 

“Oh… my god.”

“Right?” Shiro’s giddy as Kuron’s spoon dips in for more. “When I was kid I used to beg for it every Saturday night. My grandmother would always bake it in the oven, with extra cheese and little crispies on top, so it wasn’t usually a weeknight meal, but still…” he sighs, letting his eyes fall shut. “I can still remember it now, being five or six, sitting on the kitchen rug and just watching it bubble away in the oven waiting for it to be done. It’d always seemed to take longer when I did that, but I did it, because I didn’t want to wait a second longer than I had to to eat.”

“If it was even half as good as this, I think I can understand why.” Kuron offers the bowl up to Shiro, heaping spoonful of his own already at the ready. Shiro happily obliges, digging in for yet another bite and letting himself sink into the mattress and against Kuron’s shoulder as he chews. 

Right now… it was just… so easy. Sitting on the floor, eating his favourite food with Kuron, it felt like he’d know him longer than he did. There was just something about the air Kuron gave off, that easy, relaxed tone he spoke with, it just felt right, like it was something he’d grown up with. Except, he hadn’t. As much as it felt like it, Kuron hadn’t been a part of his life for years. Not even up until this week. Days ago, Kuron’d been nothing more than a nondescript egg on a shelf, but now… Now he was as real as anyone else in Shiro’s life, someone who’d leave a hole if, or whenever, they left. It’d been enough that the other day, as Kuron napped, he’d gone and tucked the deactivation key even further way than he had before, wrapped up and stuffed in a small box that now sat beneath a stack of old papers where he thought Kuron’d never stumble across it. He’d gone back and forth so much in the first twenty-four hours, but right now, settled together, sharing dinner, he couldn’t think of why he’d felt that way back then, not beyond the one hurdle dead in front of him. 

“I’m going to tell Keith.”

He doesn’t say it, so much as blurt it out in a rush. A noodle falls off Kuron’s spoon and back into the bowl, silence hanging between them ticking a half step away from the comfort it had been a second ago as the clone’s eyes widened. 

“What?”

“Tell him about you. I have to. I keep putting it off and off and off trying to figure out a better way to do it, but it just keeps getting harder and harder. He knows something’s up too. He kept saying I haven’t been myself this week, that it feels like I’m distancing myself from everyone and it’s making him worry.”

The bite in Kuron’s mouth disappears with a gulp. “He feels that way, doesn’t he? Like you’re off-frequency from each other and it’s throwing him off. That’s not… if you can help it, you shouldn’t let it happen,” he frowns. “Just because you have me with you, that shouldn’t mean you should avoid him or your other friends.”

“But I’m not… at least, I’m not  _ trying _ to, but I  _ am _ . Keeping you a secret, no matter how hard I try and act like nothing’s going on it is, and they can tell. Or at least he can.” Shiro groans, rubbing his forehead. “Which is the last thing I want. Even if he won’t admit it, he’s sensitive, little things like this throw him off.”

_ More than throw him off _ , he winces,  _ all of this skirting around people and time on a budget had Keith thinking something was seriously wrong, and no matter how well Keith played it off in front of him, he knew it’d affected him far harder than he’d ever let on. _

“Then it’s good you’re telling him. As soon as he knows the truth everything can go back to normal.”

Shiro slides half a foot down the side of the bed. “It’s more complicated than that,” he groans. “I’m probably the closest person to him, the one he feels most comfortable with, and this whole week I’ve been pushing him away without realizing it. Usually… usually he’s always the person I turn to first, the one that I’m able to just let things go to, but…” he sucks in a breath, the all-too sharp image of Keith pinned beneath his body, blade searing the skin of his face, the fear flashing in Keith’s eyes. “This is something I’m not sure he could take.”

There’s a clink as Kuron sets the bowl down, the warmth of a hand resting on his knee. “He’s strong Shiro. What has you so scared you feel like you can’t tell him?”

He bites his lip, the words catching wet and cloying in his throat. 

“It’s a lot. More than you could imagine.”

Kuron’s shirt rustles as he moves back. Instead of the confusion Shiro expects to see on his face there’s something else, something laced with doubt and something that makes his eyes grow darker. “Is it really though?”

He stares at Kuron, not quite sure what he’s seeing. “Yes,” he says, trying to be firm but there’s a waver in his voice. He’s confused.  _ Why does Kuron look like that? _ Darker, more tired, like he’s older than his seven days or even Shiro’s twenty-five years. 

“Shiro. He cares about you, more than you realize. Keeping something from him is hurting him more than telling him the truth ever could. No matter how scared you are, no matter how you think he’d react, he’d hear you out, no matter what. It’s just who he is.”

His words carry a weight to them, like a heavy blanket is settling on Shiro’s shoulders. They make him want to relax, to just nod and agree and pretend everything will work out like he says. 

“Thanks Kuron,” he sighs, eyes wandering to the ceiling tiles above. “I appreciate it, you trying to comfort me and all. But you don’t know Keith like I do. You don’t know what he’s been through, or how he’d react to you. Understanding the way he is through me talking about him to you is one thing, but getting  _ Keith _ is something totally different.”

There’s a sharp inhale beside him as Kuron goes still. The clone’s lips are pressed together eyes focused on where his hands rest against his crossed ankles. 

“What if I do?”

Electricity shoots up Shiro’s spine, leaving every nerve in his body prickling as he stares at Kuron, heartbeat mounting. 

“You…  _ How? _ You’ve never even met him, you have no idea what he’s-”

“I have.”

Shiro’s tongue turns to ash, body petrified like a tree struck by lightning, one touch from crumbling apart.  _ No. It wasn’t possible.  _ “You… you…”

“I’ve met him,” Kuron says again, hands gripping his ankles. “I’ve met Keith. I’ve talked to him. I kn-”

“ _ YOU WHAT?!”  _ It’s like he’s been dropped off a cliff, heart stopping for a moment only to start pounding faster than ever before.  _ Kuron… Kuron’d met Keith. Kuron’d. _ . “You… you weren’t supposed to be seen by anyone! You were supposed to take the back stairways, you were supposed to take Kosmo and run if you so much as heard a sound! What happened to all that?!” he yells, voice mounting in time with his heartbeat. “What happened to being scared of being seen?!”

“It’s not my fault Kosmo didn’t poof me away!” Kuron shouts back. “All the doors around were locked, it was a dead end, it was a blind corner, and he just wouldn’t budge! What was I supposed to do?”

“Not be spotted! Just like I said you shouldn’t! Oh my god, oh my god, what did he do? How did he react? Are you… is  _ he _ ?” His heart feels like it’s hitting it’s limit, beats stumbling over each other as he tries to fight the images flashing in front of his eyes of what could have happened.  _ Keith could have been… and Kuron… Kuron… _ He feels dizzy and sick, worry churning in his stomach and sloshing out into every crevice of his body, but for who he’s not quite sure. 

“Did he…” Shiro gasps, eyeing the door “did he realize what you are? What did he do?!”

“Shiro, you’re-”

“Tell me!” He lunges forwards, grabbing Kuron’s wrists and startling him. “Tell me what happened! He could be...” the thought of Keith bursting into the room fills Shiro’s head, fighting for space against the image of Keith alone in his own room, convincing himself the Shiro he knew was slipping away.

“It was fine!” Kuron squeaks, wrestling in Shiro’s grip. “I… Kosmo jumped on me and kept hanging off my right side, even when Keith told him off for it. I don’t think he knew it was me, he’d wandered off from some Sam person’s party and seemed to think I had too!”

A pound of bricks thuds to the bottom of Shiro’s stomach. Matt’s terrible party games. Keith had purposefully lost on the second one, and then after that he couldn’t remember seeing him. Because he’d been somewhere else entirely,  _ with Kuron _ . 

“Nothing happened, I swear!” Kuron’s wrists twist and suddenly they’re switched, Kuron gripping Shiro’s hands, warm and clammy as his own. “He just kept asking if something was wrong, if there was a reason you kept disappearing without a trace or making excuses to leave and not be disturbed. He…” his cheeks go pink, “he kept begging me to tell him what was wrong so he could help, and when I kept insisting he wouldn’t understand or that it’d be alright he went all still and quiet.”

Ice locks around Shiro’s throat, as if he were reliving it with Kuron. Keith shutting down, trying to think of a lighter answer and break the pull of the darkest one that came to mind.  _ That… that must have been how he’d landed it, the idea of him losing his grip on his body. The off-ness of Kuron and the lack of answers, that was what triggered it.  _ The number of things he’d tried to keep from Keith over the years didn’t even need a full hand to count, but they’d all carried a similar weight. A similar end. 

“Shiro…” Kuron says quietly. “Shiro… if you’d heard him, heard the way he said it, and the way he bared his soul, you’d know how much he just wants to know you’re alright. He cares about you so much, he just wants to know you’re okay. That you’re happy. He’d never hold anything against you.”

Tears prickle in the corner of Shiro’s eyes. It hurts. It hurts to hear this from someone else, from someone that seems to get so much of Keith, someone he wants to share with Keith and the world but keeps holding back. He’s paranoid, but how can he not be? Even if it’s a tiny miniscule chance, the thought of losing him… of losing either of them… he doesn’t want to risk it.  _ If only it weren’t so complicated. If only he’d read that manual, if only- _

“Shiro.” Kuron’s grip goes slack his fingers. His voice is small, deflated. “Can you be honest with me? Is Keith really the reason you’ve been holding back this whole time?”

“Wha-” the question breaks him out of it.  _ Of… of course it was Keith, hadn’t he already- _

“I’m asking,” Kuron continues, “because I need to know. I don’t care if it’s fair to me or not, but it’s not fair to your friends, not if they’re all like Keith. Is the one who has a problem with me Keith, or is it you?”

_ Is it you _ . 

The words sting like a slap across his face, like a whip against his back. The breath’s knocked out of him, replaced with nothing but the strangled croak that leaves his throat as Kuron sits in front of him, looking like he’d just been struck himself. 

“I… I know you didn’t like me all that much when you first saw me. I could tell, you kept looking at me like you’d seen a ghost. Like you were scared I would attack you and try and slip into your place.”

“Kuron…” Shiro croaks.

The clone shakes his head. “It got better though, you made those faces less and less so I thought you were getting used to me, adjusting to it all. I figured it was mainly just the shock of not knowing what I was and how I came to be that made you look at me that way, but-” he sighs, hands slipping off of Shiro’s as he curls inward around his knees. “Now I think I get it. You’re ashamed of me. You’re ashamed of letting anyone know what I am, because of how they’d look at you, especially your best friend.  _ How would he react if he thought I was self-absorbed enough to want to fuck myself _ . Yeah,” he lets out a broken little laugh, “yeah… I can see how you’d think that wouldn’t go over well.”

That… that wasn’t it, except it  _ was _ . Because he  _ knew _ the looks he’d get from people when they saw Kuron, and when they inevitably asked where he came from, well… As much as  _ he _ knew Kuron, knew the little nuances, the little ticks and quirks that made him him and not  _ him _ , he couldn’t count on everyone else to see them too. They’d just see him at face value, a grow your own boyfriend that looked just like him, and take it from there.

“Please,” Kuron croaks, and Shiro feels his heart crack. “Please, if it’s not true,  _ tell me! _ Because if it is… I… I…”

“I…” Shiro tries, but the words lodge in his throat. It’s messy, it’s so messy it’s impossible to say what it is in one word, let alone several. “I…”

Kuron shakes his head. “I didn’t ask to look like this. I didn’t ask for you to buy me, or to keep me around after I became damaged goods!”

“You’re not!” Shiro’s arms shoot out towards Kuron only to be slapped away.

“But I  _ am! _ I’m not what you want, and all this time I’ve been fooling myself, pretending it’s not true. If you’d just told me… if you’d just said something… I might have… I could have…” 

“Kuron!” Shiro tries to reach out again, to get purchase on something as Kuron starts shaking his head, fingers knotted in his hair. He tries to pull them back, to replace them with his own so he can try and soothe him back to calm, but a spark of static makes him flinch back

“If only I’d been cast as something else… maybe then… maybe it’d have been better. I could have looked like one or your friends, or even a random stranger in a bar instead-” he’s rocking faster now, and Shiro swears he sees sparks crackling from Kuron’s hands, bright snakes of blue light shooting across his face and skull. 

“Kuron!” Shiro shouts. “Kuron! Please! Just look at me!”

“But I’m… but I’m not… no matter how much I wish I were… I’m  _ not! _ ” The energy is building up more and more around him, hair whipping side to side as lighting crackles and pops around him. Shiro watches in horror as Kuron’s face seems to flicker, distorting like a picture on an old TV set, flashing from normal to pockmarked to barely discernible behind static. 

_ No… he can’t be. _ It was impossible, it couldn’t happen, Kuron was already locked into a form, trying to change it now… it… 

“Kuron!” he screams as the clone begins to jerk, body convulsing as his face continues to glitch in and out. “Kuron, snap out of it! Please! You’re hurting yourself! You’ll…  _ you’ll!!” _

_ No. He can’t say it.  _ He doesn’t even want to think it, even as it fills his mind more and more with every twitch and shake of Kuron’s body. He can’t… he can’t. It feels so wrong, even as bile starts to fill his throat as he shakes Kuron, even as the hairs of his knuckles singe in the sparks he’s letting off. He can’t do this to himself, he can’t let himself break. He’s not some toy, not to Shiro. He’s… he’s…

“Kuron  _ please! _ ” Shiro chokes. “Please, you don't have to do this! I don’t want you to! You’re… you’re too special to me, it doesn’t matter what you look like! Just, stop this! Please! Stop, before you-”

He’s knocked back, the smell of singed hair and wire filling his nostrils as the noise around Kuron’s head flares out in a single flash. He hears Kuron hit the ground before he sees it, a dead thud that has him threatening to empty his stomach from nausea. 

_ No. He can’t have. _

The body he tugs into his arms is limp, eyes closed as he runs his hands through singed hair. He’s not moving, not even a stirring in the chest of flicker of the lids. Just… dead weight. Just like-

“No…” Shiro croaks. “No… no no no  _ no no! _ ” Tears are spilling down his face before he can stop them. They cascade into Kuron’s hair, blackened beyond recognition where they mingle with his fingers running through it, trying to coax something,  _ anything _ , out of the lifeless body. He couldn’t… he couldn’t just be gone. Not like that. He was here just a second ago and now… he couldn’t just be snuffed out. He cluches Kuron to his chest, letting his sobs wrack through his body and Kuron’s as he holds him close. 

It was all to familiar and yet the pain still hurt just as much. Even worse really. Because unlike the last time he’d been here, watching another him fade away, it hadn’t been like this. They hadn’t touched, hadn’t sleep beside each other or shared memories together. They hadn’t looked at him the way Kuron did, or made him feel the way he felt around him. He’d been like a guardian, a fly on the wall watching the other him, listening in on his every moment of self doubt he faced in Black’s cockpit. Watching his slow descent into questioning who he was, wanting to reach out and offer something, anything to him. But he couldn’t. That him hadn’t been able to tap into Black’s energy like he had. They hadn’t been able to meet in the space between worlds. Not until the end, where his clone had looked up at him, weak and fading, and accepted his fate. 

There’d been no fight left, no anger, no resentment as he’d laid there in Shiro’s arms, breathing slowing. He’d just smiled, hand trying and failing to reach up to touch Shiro’s cheek. Glass had caught in his throat. He hadn’t been able to say anything. He’d just sat there, holding his clone in the Astral Plane, staying with him until he finally faded into that good night, body dissolving like soap bubbles around him. 

That time had hurt so much, but this… this was a hundred times worse. Because he’d  _ known _ Kuron, and Kuron’d known him, maybe even better than he knew himself. 

_ And he hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye.  _

“Please Kuron,” he chokes, stroking his twins cheek where his tears kept falling. “Please. I can’t let this happen again. I can’t lose you. Not you too.”

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, cradling Kuron’s head in his arm. All he knows is that the tears kept flowing, even when his body insists he has nothing left to give. His chest keeps aching and his brain keeps screaming, screaming at him how he messed up. How he could have prevented all this. He could have just bit the bullet and not cared what others thought, but he had, and this was what it had gotten him. And so the tears continued to flow. 

“You were perfect, just the way you were…” his voice is raw, but he forces himself to speak. He has to get this weight off his chest before it crushes him. “You looked like me, but you were you. Sweet… kind… so much more than I deserved, and I didn’t make you feel the same way. You deserved someone better than me, someone who made you feel as special as you were. Because you were… you are… you’re…” he chokes, “you’re my-”

There’s a twitch against Shiro’s chest, so slight he almost mistakes it for the beating of his heart. 

“You’re my Kuron...” he whispers, letting his lips rest on Kuron’s crown. 

Only to feel the skin beneath them move. 

He jolts back, heart hammering in his throat, hardly daring to breathe in case… but he sees it this time, the tensing of the muscles of Kuron’s temples, the flicker of his lashes. It’s enough to make his tear ducts go into overdrive, fresh tears welling up from god knows where as Kuron’s eyelids struggle to open, dark grey irises blooming in the light of day. 

“Shi… ro?”

Anything else on Kuron’s lips is swept away, tugged into Shiro’s arms as he rocks him back into a hug, tears staining the shoulder of Kuron’s shirt. 

“Oh my god! Oh my god… thank you! Thank you thank you thank god you’re okay!” He cradles Kuron’s head against his neck, each weak puff of breath against his skin bringing new life into him where it had been drained. “I thought… I thought you were…”

“Dead?” Kuron’s voice is slurred, he sounds god awful, but right now all Shiro can focus is on the fact he’s alive. 

“Yes!” he sobs, burying his nose into Kuron’s neck. “I was so worried. You just… you just collapsed and I couldn’t do anything, you were just dead weight, you wouldn’t… and I-”

A heavy handed pat glances off Shiro’s knee as Kuron tries to comfort him and it just makes him squeeze him tighter. 

“Please, tell me you’re okay.”

“Mm’kay,” Kuron mumbles. “Feel fuzzy, like I just went through a lighting storm.”

“You kind of did.”

Kuron hums against Shiro. “Hmmm, issat so? Then… then does that mean…” he tries to lift his hand, but it only makes it as far as Shiro’s waist before it drops like a dead weight to his side. 

“Mean what?” Shiro’s looking him over, checking the cords and ligaments in Kuron’s arm for signs of damage. He had no idea if Kuron’s circuitry was anything like human anatomy, but he  _ had to try _ . 

“Well… I definitely drained most of my power it seems like,” he chuckles drunkenly. “Maybe it did do something.” He cocks his head, letting it flop sideways onto his shoulder as he grins up at Shiro like a drunken toddler. “How do I look? Better?”

He looks exhausted, face shining with exertion. His hair and brows almost charcoal black now, no trace of the silver white Shiro’s so used to seeing on him and himself, but he looks happy, cheeks flushed as he smiles up at Shiro. 

“You.. you looked perfect before,” he says, and he means it. When he looks at that face, he doesn’t see a copy of his own anymore, but someone else, someone he’d fight for tooth and nail if something ever happened to him. It’s still the same face, the same smile and the same quirk of the cupid’s bow as he lets out a puff of laughter, only now it’s framed with dark hair instead of light. It’s still him. “You’re still perfect now. Just… darker.”

Kuron’s brows pull up in confusion and Shiro can’t help but let out a bark of laughter at the snail’s pace they move at as Kuron tries to work out what he means. 

“Your hair,” he says. “It’s black, or at least, blackened. We’ll probably have to try and clean you up to see.”

“Mmm, oh it  _ is… _ ” Kuron pulls a piece of his fringe in front of his eyes. “Lookit that. Guess I managed something after all.”

“Do you want to wash up and see if it comes out?”

Kuron shakes his head, settling himself back against Shiro’s chest. “Nnn… not right now. It didn’t come off on my hands, so it might just be this way for good now. Completely drained my power cells, I don’t think I could change it back even if I wanted to right now.”

“Well, don’t.” Shiro hefts Kuron up onto his shoulder, using the extra leverage to help lift him into bed. “Don’t you dare go doing that again on me. Do you know…” his voice catches, “did you know how much it would scare me?”

Kuron lets out a whimper, hands clasping behind Shiro’s neck and refusing to let go. “I thought the change would mean more to you. That you’d care more about-”

“Well I care about  _ you! _ ” cuts Shiro. “I care about you for  _ you _ , not some stupid face or hair colour. You’re…” he stumbles, “you mean a lot to me Kuron, even if I’ve done a bad job of showing it up until now. I don’t know what I’d do if you suddenly disappeared from my life.”

“You could always-”

“No, I couldn’t!” He tugs the blankets back and slips Kuron beneath them before sliding in himself. “I wouldn’t just buy another copy, because it wouldn’t be you. I like you for who you are, and no copy’s ever going to come close to being you.”

Kuron’s eyelids are starting to droop, dark locks splayed out across his pillow. “You mean that?” 

Shiro moves closer, wrapping an arm around his twin. “I do.”

“M’glad,” Kuron mumbles, body already relaxing into the throes of sleep. “I had it all twisted up in my head that you didn’t.”

Shiro lets out a snort as he draws the blankets up to their chins. “You get that from me. Can’t say it’s something you want to have, but that little voice’s always been there and it’s not going to quiet down unless you find a way to shut it up.”

“It’s pretty quiet now,” Kuron hums, before his breathing slows to a peaceful rumble. There’s a whisper of his smile on his lips, something Shiro stares at long past when he’s sure Kuron’s fully asleep. Only when his own lids grow heavy does he look away, settling his head against Kuron’s chest where he can feel the soft beating of his heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought I wasn't gonna go there, I went there >)


	8. Chapter 8

Shiro rolls over with a groan, the pale red display of his alarm clock just managing to light up the barest shapes of the peaks and valleys of the mess of blankets wrapped around him. 

3 AM. 

3 AM and he’s awake, gut cramping uncomfortably with knots on knots of seizing muscles. It’s the type of cramping where he can’t quite tell the source, mild enough that it could be from food poisoning or hunger or his body rebelling against the sheer number of situps he’d done yesterday between bites of birthday cake. It’s not terrible, but it’s no laughing matter, letting itself be known whenever Shiro tries to settle into a new position to try and sleep. 

_ Fuck. _ Next time Matt came up with another gauntlet of bad party game ideas he was just going to fail out early and bail liked Keith. He moves again, rolling onto his stomach hoping the extra pressure helps, but it only does for a minute before it’s back creeping up in intensity, the only saving grace is that his groan is muffled by his mattress. 

Shiro’s gut twists in on itself and he bites back another groan. Instead he sucks in a breath, rolling onto his side and face to face with Kuron. 

The clone’s eyes are closed in sleep, left cheek mushed against the sheets right beside where his hand is fisted in the covers. Only his head is visible, the rest of his body a hidden mass that rises and falls with each slow breath he takes. Eyelashes rest against his face, dark streaks against pale skin. He looks so peaceful like that. So calm. Gingerly, Shiro reaches out to run a hand through the short crop of his hair, black on shadowy beige, and the cramping takes a second of respite on his guts to squeeze instead at his throat. 

Black hair. 

He’d done that. 

Guilt squirms around inside him along with the cramps, a different, slower twisting of his guts. He’d been so caught up in himself, of what people would think, of how it’d look to Keith that he’d let this happen. In a way, he deserved the pain he was going through right now. He could only imagine how trying to rebuild yourself from the inside out would feel, the hot light and spasms that Kuron had gone through. 

He wasn’t going to ever let him go through that another time. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he was going to bite the bullet, he was going to tell Keith everything. About his spur of the moment purchase, how he’d ended up bringing Kuron to life (vaguely, of course), and everything that’d happened after that. It’d be awkward. It was the one part of their personal lives they never shared with each other, not after Keith had walked in on him once at the garrison. But for Kuron, he’d do it. He’d scale that hurdle and hopefully Keith would be on the other side, shaking his head but smiling, welcoming Kuron with open arms. 

If he’d be accepted by him, it’d all be alright. 

He watches Kuron sleep, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. After what had happened last night, he can’t quite believe they’re just…  _ here _ . Together, lying side by side like always, except without the weight that had been hanging on his- hanging on both their shoulders this whole time, both of them pretending nothing was wrong. Ignoring it, as if acting like it wasn’t there would make it all go away.

As much as he doesn’t want to dwell on it, he does. He’d been this close to losing him, thanks to that side of himself. Silence had almost let him disappear into the good night, like a comet shooting across the sky, bright for a second before fading with barely a trace. Kuron’s light had almost gone out in front of him before he’d even had his time to truly shine. 

He pushes Kuron’s bangs up out of his face, watching the shadows shift across his cheeks. Heat radiates from Kuron’s brow to his palm, as gentle of a comfort as the tickle of his breath against the sheets. 

“I’m an idiot.” 

It’s for himself, more than anyone else, but right now, in this moment, he feels like he needs to say it aloud. 

“I should have thought more about you, how  _ you _ would feel. I was just... so wrapped up in what I thought mattered most I missed what little hints you were giving me… and you…” he bites his lip, “you were just so patient with me. You kept putting me before yourself and I… I never realized what else you needed from me. I… I messed up,” he swallows. “I messed up big time, and it almost cost me you.”

Kuron stirs against his hand, and Shiro’s breathing stills as he lets him rubs against his fingers. 

“I promise,” he whispers, fingers curling in Kuron’s dark hair. “I promise… I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m not letting anything happen this time. The both of us… we’re going to survive. Survive together.”

There’s a hum from Kuron as he curls closer, almost if he can hear Shiro’s promise. It’s like an affirmation, quick and simple, and then he’s silent again, dark locks splayed across his brow. Shiro smiles as he once again settles into sleep proper.

He can’t deny how well the color frames Kuron’s face. He looks younger like this, with his hair dark. Even with the same lines etched into his face Shiro somehow feels like he’s looking back into a mirror of himself two years ago, back to a simpler time when he’d only just begun to realize the whole universe he’d stumbled his way into. He lets out a little huff, tracing the edge of Kuron’s ear as his hand trails down. In a way, that’s where Kuron’s found himself now, smack in the middle of something he’d had no idea of until now. 

Another cramp wracks through Shiro’s body and he sucks in a breath through his teeth, doubling up on himself as his muscles spasm in protest of god knows what. His hands fly to his stomach, trying to soothe the unrest there. He rolls again, trying to find another position that will bring him some more respite, ending up with a hand pressed between his knee and protesting muscles. It’s hardly any different, but at least the extra pressure is making him feel like it’s doing something for him.

“... Shiro?”

From his cocoon of blankets Kuron blinks out at him, groggy as can be. He still looks exhausted, but there’s a way that the light catches his eyes that makes Shiro feel like he’s more awake than he looks. It reminds him back in his cadet days, whenever someone’d try to wake him up in the night to sneak out to the kitchens or onto the roof, two feet firmly in sleep camp but an arm toeing the line to wakefulness trying to decide if it’d be worth it. Kuron stirs sightly, hand disappearing under the blankets and Shiro can feel the mattress move with how he stretches. 

“Y’okay? It’s late…”

“It’s nothing,” he says. It’s automatic, like breathing air, a response so baked into him it leaves without him even batting an eye. “It’s just…” He hisses, curling up a little tighter, hoping the press of his thighs will be enough to will the discomfort away. “... a little muscle pain. Nothing that won’t pass.”

Kuron stares, half at him, half through him, and for a second Shiro’s sure he’s going to roll over by the way he tugs up the covers, but instead he’s worming closer, bangs crawling up his face as he closes the distance between them by a few inches. “Doesn’t seem like nothing. Where is it?”

“... Stomach,” Shiro says after a deep breath. “Think it’s from exercise. S’sore.”

The mattress creaks between them both and one of Kuron’s hands finds Shiro’s knee. “That’s no good. Here… let’s just…” His grip strengthens on Shiro’s leg just as his other hand slides under Shiro’s chest. He’s… he’s strong. Stronger than Shiro thought. It’s almost nothing for him to ease Shiro onto his back, and then onto his other side, until he’s back facing the clock, same as when he’d woken up. 

Kuron’s bulk presses up against Shiro’s back and a knee comes to slide between his own, curling Shiro into a protective cocoon of his clone’s body. He finds his hips slotting against Kuron’s, feels Kuron’s arms winding around him, hands sliding around his waist until they’re resting on his middle, gentle, but with a firm pressure against his cramping muscles. He’s about to protest, to tell Kuron to let go, but right then he realizes how  _ warm _ Kuron’s palms are, how deliciously soothing they are against his sore stomach, and all that goes out the window. Instead he finds himself relaxing into Kuron’s arms, pressing those hands even closer against his skin. 

“Holy hell… why do your hands feel so good?” They’re like two hotpacks in just the right spots, and as Shiro presses them against to his middle he can feel Kuron begin to tense and flex them, slowly working out the pins and needles that have been steadily building there for hours. 

Kuron shrugs around him. “It’s not too hard to regulate my body temperature. Figured I should put them to use if you’re feeling sore.”

“And it’s not… not going to use up too much of your energy?” He’s hyperaware of anything that could pose a risk to Kuron right now, and anything even remotely resembling a power failure is terrifying.

“No, it should be okay. I’m not doing anything other than resting.”

Shiro nods, and lets Kuron snuggle closer.

It’s a little weird, letting someone else hold and knead at his stomach, but he has to admit it feels surprisingly good. Shiro’d debated if he should get out of bed and hunt down a heating pad earlier, but this is doing the trick and then some. He shifts a bit and Kuron moves with him, fingers digging in that much more and Shiro starts to feel the tight cords of muscle in his body finally start to give. “Please… don’t stop,” he breathes, adjusting until Kuron’s fingers are fully splayed over his stomach. “It’s finally starting to die down a bit now.”

Kuron nods into Shiro’s neck, curling a little closer around him and continuing to gently rub his sides. Compared to the on and off pain he’d been in for what’d felt like hours this was heaven. His body is relaxing back towards sleep faster than he even thought possible. He snuggles closer, letting Kuron’s warmth fully envelop him. Distantly he realizes he hasn’t been held like this in years, not since...

Something bumps against his rear, rubbing up against the back of Shiro’s sweatpants, but as soon as he stops to question it, it’s gone. 

“S-sorry!” Kuron mumbles, voice muffled in the back of Shiro’s shirt. When he’s hugged closer once more it’s as though it’d never been there. Maybe a knee, or an elbow out of place? Whatever it was, Shiro doesn’t care. He’s warm, muscles relaxing at long last. The way he’s slotted in against Kuron it’s like he’s being protected from the outside world, Kuron’s body draped over him like a shield and his hands resting snug in front, protecting the soft meat of his belly. It feels safe, in a way he hasn’t felt in quite some time, and before he knows it, Shiro’s gone, finally slipping off into sleep.

When he wakes up the next morning the cramps are a distant memory, Kuron still wrapped around him, one hand still resting above his navel.

* * *

He rolls over several times, sleeping in past his usual workout slot and even the early breakfast time he’d gotten in the habit of taking. Only when it creeps past eight, and the threat of being interrupted by a nosy Holt sibling weighs heavily on him does he finally find the will to worm his way out of Kuron’s arms.

He nearly drags him out with him, Kuron’s wrapped so tightly around him it takes minutes just to coax him to let go and stay in bed. The bed part Kuron barely protests at, pulling Shiro’s pillow to his chest and starting to drift back off to his promise of bringing back some toast or waffles. There’s a sleepy mumble of thanks, and something about how food’ll probably help him charge back the rest of the way to full, and then there’s nothing but the very top of Kuron’s now dark head peeking out of the blankets, clone already fully back at rest. 

He winds up in the mess hall before anyone else, Keith being the first one to appear after Shiro’s second mug of coffee and transition from fruit to pancakes. 

“You’re back to your normal breakfast time,” Keith notes, sitting down with a plateful of eggs and biscuits as Shiro liberally douses his pancakes in syrup. He watches as a good quarter of the jug is emptied, lips in a thin line, almost as if he has something else to say but can’t find the words. “That’s… that’s good?”

Shiro sets down the jug, already feeling like a lump of syrup-cemented cakes are in his stomach. He… he really should have prepared more for this, but now, just the two of them, is as good as it’ll ever get. 

“Yeah,” he smiles weakly, setting down his fork to look at Keith proper. “I felt like I needed it today. Last night was… well… it was a lot. And not just between you and me!” he says before Keith can interject. It’s important for him to do this right. “Last night there was a lot I had to think about. Stuff I haven’t been that I really needed to, that was hard to face. Really,” he huffs, stirring his butter pat across the top of his pancakes as it melts, “I don’t know if I’d have done it if it weren’t for you confronting me.”

“So you’re-”

“Yeah,” he nods. “I think I’m ready to talk about it now. It might not be easy, but I want to. I have to, it’s the best for everyone, otherwise we’re all just going to keep on hurting. Just… promise me you’ll hear me out fully before you say anything. It’s… it’s not something I can know how you’ll react to – and I’m not going to lie, I’m scared of what it might be – but it feels like the right thing to do. I don’t want to hide it from you anymore.”

There’s a beat where neither of them move, it’s just the two of them, staring at the bottle of milk between them, as if has all the answers they need.  _ If only it were that easy _ , Shiro thinks,  _ if someone else could do this for the both of them _ ,  _ navigate them through the rocks he’s about to steer through.  _ He’s already made the air heavy between them, an extra layer of fog blanketing the connection that’s usually so clear, and it’s only going to get soupier from here.

“Well…” Keith’s looking at him now, piece of potato speared on his fork. His mouth is set small, eyes wide and thoughtful. “Do you think it would be easier on a full stomach?”

Shiro stares back at him, tongue tied to the roof of his mouth. 

“Yeah… it might.”

Keith smiles shyly. He takes a bite, piling eggs onto his fork and takes another, watching from the corner of his eye until Shiro joins in as well. 

“Dad always used to say hard things are easier to digest on a full stomach. There’s less room for them to get churned around that way.”

“He was a wise guy, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah…” Keith stares off long and wistful for a second. There’s a twinkle in his eyes, like windows catching the first rays of dawn. “He was. Mom talks about him a lot, stuff I knew and then stuff I didn’t. Like the fact that he was completely useless before his first cup of coffee in the morning.”

“I can relate,” Shiro snorts, taking a sip of his own. 

“Right now I think I can too.” He slides his mug across the table and lets Shiro top him up, staring intently until the dark brown liquid’s reached the very lip. He pulls it back and nurses it from the tabletop in long, slow sips.

Shiro leans closer, hand hovering over Keith’s shoulder. “Rough night?” He can’t help but wonder if part of that is his fault. 

“Slept terrible,” Keith groans. “Kosmo was rolling all over the place in bed. Legs flailing... panting… I swear at some point he was trying to dig a hole in the covers.”

“Couldn’t you have just... pushed him out?” 

Keith sighs, stirring his hashbrowns into his hot sauce. “I could have… but I don’t know. I just feel like… ever since we’ve gotten on the Atlas I’ve had less and less time to spend with him. Before he was almost always around me. The first two years of his life he was always at my side, and now he’s not. And I feel guilty about it. Like… he’s my wolf.”

“I thought you said he was his  _ own _ wolf,” Shiro says though a mouthful of pancakes.

“Yeah, but you know that’s not true. He’s independent, but at the same time he’s not, y’know. He needs to be with his people sometimes.”

Shiro nods, the image of Kuron swimming in his mind. “I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“And with everything we’re having to do lately, the meetings, the peacemaking, the diplomacy stuff, I keep having less and less time for him. Maybe that’s why he’s been acting up more and more these days. Sometimes I can’t find him and then he shows up an hour later, tired like he’s been off doing something on his own. And then other times I find him doing stuff he shouldn’t, like chewing my boots or digging up planter beds or jumping up on you. You don’t think… you don’t think he f eels like I’m abandoning him, do you?”

“I’m sure he doesn’t feel abandoned,” Shiro cuts in quickly. Keith of all people knew what feeling that way was like better than most. He’s not about to make him feel like he’s on the other end of that u nhappy cycle, especially not someone who cares like him. 

He reaches over and pulls Keith into a side-armed hug, smushing him up against his shoulder. “Maybe he’s feeling a little lonely on some days, or wants to have more time with you, but it could also be that he’s still getting used to the new routine here. If he was used to following you around all day before, he’s probably still working out what to do with that time now. He’ll still need help with the transition, but everyone has to get used to a new normal at some point. You and me included.”

“Maybe…” Keith hums. “If that’s the case though, it’d be nice if he could stop causing so much trouble all the time.”

“Hey now,” Shiro chuckles. “Kids act up sometimes, it’s just a part of the process. You just have to figure out what they need to help them adjust. I won’t lie, all this getting into things he shoudn’t be reminds me a bit of  _ someone  _ when they transferred to the garrison.”

Keith lets out a little snort. “So you’re saying that if I keep leaving him to his own devices he might try and take a joy-ride in Iverson’s car?”

“Maybe,” Shiro grins, ruffling Keith’s hair, “or maybe I’m saying that you should try and set aside some proper time for him every day, just the two of you. That, and maybe look for some toys on our next stop to see if they’ll keep him out of the Holts’ stuff.”

“He doesn’t get into their stuff that much…”

_ “Keith, _ didn’t Pidge just tell us two days ago that she’d caught him with one of her spanners? And then the other week he had one of Kinkade’s cameras?”

“In his defense, Kinkade left that lying around.”

“In the camera’s defense, it was covered in drool.”

“That’s just how he shows affection!”

Shiro laughs as Keith tries to tongue at his hand trying to prove his point, and the two of them burst into a fit of giggles, trying to keep the other from planting a wet tongueful on the other. Shiro tries to grab Keith’s hair and plant a sloppy one on his ear, but as always Keith’s a slippery one. He’s almost got him pinned, blood pumping, Keith’s nose dangerously close to his own neck, when Lance wanders into the dining room. 

“ _ Ugh, please,  _ no PDA at the table.”

They freeze, Shiro’s arm humming with energy and Keith’s face dangerously close to his stack of pancakes. 

“Uh…” Shiro stammers.

“We’re not a couple!” Keith growls, pulling away with pink cheeks. “Just because you’re on cloud nine over you and Allura doesn’t mean everyone i-”

“Oh man, I’m so glad you brought that up!” Lance sits down across from them, blue and orange berries rolling off his stack of french toast as he grabs at the syrup. “So last night we were just relaxing in my room, y’know, just chilling if you catch my drift–”

Shiro and Keith exchange a look, Keith rolling his eyes as Lance starts to go into  _ gratuitous  _ detail about how Allura’s nose wiggled when he’d tickle her ears. They both knew it was a lost cause trying to recover a conversation back from Lance, especially when he got that smitten look on his face. There was nothing more they could do than eat their breakfasts and let Lance gush about the Altean princess.

Shiro’s heart sinks as he starts on the second half of his plate. He’d missed his chance to talk to Keith alone. He’d have to try again later, when they could find another moment just the two of them. 

The other crew members trickle in, all in various states of wakefulness. Shiro’s pleased to see that Matt is nursing a hotpack against his stomach; he’s not the only one still feeling the dregs of yesterday’s “games”. The conversations get more and more general, slowly shifting away from the personal and eventually spiraling into the inane.

Partway through an aggressive debate over the best type of barbeque, Keith leans over, sniffing the air right in front of Shiro. 

“Something up?” he asks.

Keith gives the air another sniff, nostrils twitching as he glances over Shiro’s chest and lap. “I smell… something? Something really good? What in those pancakes?”

Shiro pauses mid mouthful, trying to roll it over his tastebuds. “Dunno. Cinnamon maybe? Vanilla? You want a bite?”

Keith takes the piece off his fork and chews slowly. “Can’t be sure. Doesn’t taste like they’re in there, but whatever that smell is, these definitely aren’t the the old garrison hockey pucks.”

“You think I’d be eating them if they were?” Shiro asks, and Keith nearly snorts orange juice out his nose as Shiro flaps another piece in his face menacingly. 

The rest of breakfast goes by quick. He’s about to settle his heels deep into a debate over morning crossword puzzles with Lance (there’s nothing ‘dad’ about them unless you make way to big a deal out of the ritual of them), when he remembers he’s supposed to bring some breakfast back to Kuron. An excuse about dropping off food for the bridge crew and several painful questions and eyebrow bounces from Lance and Coran alike and he’s heading back to his room, containerful of muffins and a thermos of coffee heavier. 

Kuron’s still in bed when he arrives, head the only thing poking out from the nest of blankets he’s burrowed himself in. God… it’s… its amazing how something as simple as a change in hair colour can change so much about him. He still knows it’s Kuron, still knows that every other bit of him is the same as his own body, but seeing him with dark hair makes it that much more real he’s looking at another person instead of just a copy of himself. He sets down the thermos and muffins on his desk and gently shakes Kuron awake. It takes the better part of several minutes, Kuron grabbing his waist and trying to tug him into the nest he’s made multiple times, and Shiro won’t lie how tempting it would be to just kick back and relax with him for another in the warmth of his bed. But eventually, the smell of bananas and chocolate chips fills the room and Kuron’s upright, albeit leaning on Shiro’s shoulder rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. 

“Y’feeling okay?” he chuckles, brushing Kuron’s hair back from his face. 

“Still tired,” Kuron moans, clutching onto Shiro’s arm as he paws blindly for the source of the smell. “Last night took more out of me than I’d thought. Probably still need another few hours to charge back up to normal.” 

“But, you’re okay, right? There’s nothing broken, or anything wrong with your power cells? Actually...” Shiro pauses, “ _ is there _ a place we could reach out if there was? Like is there a repair line we could call, or someone who’d be able to help if-”

“Hmm.” Kuron gums at the muffin top Shiro hands him, taking small bite after bite until he finds enough strength to sit up on his own. “I can self-repair for the most part, but if there’s something extensive, the manufacturers might be able to do something. Replenish my nanites or something?” He chews thoughtfully. “That’s something I’ve never really thought about. They’d have to have some idea of how to deal with that type of thing, but then again, they might just sa-”

“I’m not replacing you.” And he means it. He’s firm as he says it, giving Kuron’s thigh a squeeze for good measure. “No matter how beat up you ever find yourself I’m not trading you in.”

Kuron looks down at his muffin, but there’s no missing the extra tint of colour in his face as he does. He eats in silence for a bit, the two of the resting together, Shiro nursing little sips from Kuron’s coffee until the clone reaches over to take a few himself. After several gulps of milk and sugar laden caffeine later he sits up taller, looking more lively than he’d been before. He eyes Shiro over the rim of his cup, fingers drumming on the sides, grey eyes wide and full of something bubbling just beneath the surface. Shiro waits, letting him take his time instead of pushing, enjoying the long ticking seconds as Kuron continues to glance between him and his drink

“About last night,” he says finally, still glancing sideways at Shiro. “I thought I heard you say something. I don’t know if I heard it right, but I swear... you said  _ ‘This time… this time both of us are going to survive _ ’.”

Shiro goes still as Kuron turns to look at him fully, those soft grey eyes suddenly piercing. 

“It didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t, which is why I don’t get why I’m so sure you said it. There’s no way… you  _ definitely _ haven’t had another me before, and from your whole confusion you can’t even have  _ seen _ one before, so why? Why am I so sure you said it, when there’s no way there’s ever been another-”

It’s like he’s been paralyzed upright. His entire body is prickling with fight or flight, heart racing, memories locked behind walls in his head banging at the gates to be let out.  _ He’d sworn… he’d sworn Kuron had been asleep when he’d said that, that that movement just then had been instinct and nothing more _ , but no… He’d heard it. Which meant… 

“- Shiro… Shiro are you okay?” Kuron’s gently shaking his arm, trying to rouse him from the confines of his mind. “You went all pale all of a sudden. It’s not… this doesn’t mean, there’s someone else who looks like you?”

He can only bob his head and nod, lump in his throat blocking his words. 

“Do you… do you not get along? Is that why you don’t talk about them? Are they somewhere else entirely, someplace in the universe where you don’t have to see each other?”

Shiro shakes his head. “It’s not… it’s not that. They’re… they’re not around anymore.”

Kuron frowns. “As in-?” he starts, and his eyes go wide, face gaunt as he takes in the way Shiro looks away, drawing in on himself. “Oh… oh Shiro… I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, trying to focus on the freckles on his knuckles. “It’s not your fault. I… I couldn’t do anything either.”

Kuron shifts closer, one arm sliding around Shiro’s waist and pulling him against his side. “Was he… was he your brother?”

He shakes no again. Kuron squeezes his side.

“Then can I ask? What was he to you? What happened?”

Shiro’s hand grips his knee, knuckles going white. “It’s… it’s messy. And complicated. I don’t know if you’d understand.”

“I’ll try. And even if I don’t, maybe it’ll help me understand something else. Something more about you.”

He chews the inside of his cheek, waiting out the seconds as they stretch into minutes in the silence. It’s… its not something he likes to revisit. It’s like revisiting a bad dream, knowing everything that will happen, but all the more scared because of it. 

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “It’s something I’m not really able to talk about. Not… not well at least.” And it’s true. There’s so much there, so much beyond what anyone outside of those who’d experienced it would ever understand. Even now, months after it had met it’s conclusion, he still hasn’t managed to pull it all into words. 

“Please.” “Kuron’s hand rests on his knee, voice so soft its barely a whisper. “Try. For me.”

“I... “ Shiro licks his lips. 

Kuron leans closer, forehead resting against Shiro’s nape. His hand strokes soothing circles into his side, and for a moment Shiro feels some of the tension leave his bones. 

“I… I got lost,” he starts. “Lost enough that I thought I’d never find my way back to my friends, and lost enough for them to think I wouldn’t either. And then they found another me.”

Kuron sucks in a breath. “Like…”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Not quite like you. Human. An actual clone, implanted with all my memories. He thought he was me so much that sometimes, I couldn’t even quite tell which one of us was the real one. For a long time… he  _ was _ me, and I was just… lost, watching through the looking glass.” He can still remember his copy in Black’s cockpit, begging with her, giving his all fighting. He’d worked his hardest, done everything he could to protect the same people they both loved, and then…

Shiro’s throat catches, swallowing on shards of glass. It was still… still so painful to remember this. “And then one day he just…  _ cracked _ . He was turned against them, tried to kill them all. I…” he can feel acid washing up his throat. “I almost saw him succeed, and all because the person who created him tried to take control. She… she just  _ wiped _ him, wiped everything about him and turned him into a weapon. And I had to  _ watch… _ just…  _ watch _ ...”

There’s precious little air in his lungs right now, completely separate from how Kuron’s hugging him tight now. “But it’s okay, right?” he asks, palms running up and down his arms now trying to calm him. “He didn’t do it, in the end it all worked out. Didn’t it?”

“He’s… he’s gone now, yeah,” breathes Shiro. He holds his hand out in front of him and slowly makes a fist. He can feel every twitch and tug of his tendons. “For as much as I can tell, he doesn’t exist, she can’t control him anymore. But still… I watched it all happen, and I was powerless to stop it. Someone took me,  _ another me _ , and used them to hurt the people I care about most. It’s… it’s not something that’s easy to forget.”

Kuron nods against his shoulder, stroking his sides again and again. He’s quiet, soundless except for the sound of his fingers sliding up and down fabric. He seems lost in thought, Shiro can almost swear he can hear the gears turning in his head as they sit there, the weight of what he’d just said weighing heavily on them both. 

“So that’s it.” His voice is calm, like raindrops rolling down leaves, or water lapping against the short. There’s nothing else under it, no confusion, no surprise or shock or awe. It’s just… steady. “That’s why you were so worried about me, why you were so worried about your friends. You went through all that,  _ they _ went through all of it, and you can’t forget it.”

Shiro nods, letting Kuron pull him closer into his arms. It’s one of those hugs that doesn’t need words, but instead seems to say everything through touch alone. There’s the way Kuron’s thumb strokes against his collar bone, and how he moves to let his temple rest against Shiro’s cheek. There’s no need for looks, or noises, or anything beyond the feeling of two arms around him and the warm press of skin and muscle against his palms where he holds them close to him. 

Kuron’s not him. He’ll never be him. He won’t have all of Shiro’s memories. He won’t be some creation of Haggar, or something she can control with a snap of her fingers. He knows that, but still, there will always be that underlying worry, that  _ what if _ that something could happen… that something will happen to him too, and this time, Shiro might not be able to handle it. 

He worms around in Kuron’s arms until they’re chest to chest, and he can hug Kuron too. He tries to pour the same words, the same feelings into his arms, tries to give a shred of the comfort Kuron’s putting out to him as well. 

“You’re different,” he mumbles, letting Kuron’s hair tickle his face. “I know you’re not him, he can’t replace you, not anymore than you could replace him. I’ve known that for a while now, but even so…”

“You’re not sure you can go through that again. Watching someone you relate to die.”

Something like a sob catches in Shiro’s throat. “Y-yeah,” he croaks.

He’s… he’s never acknowledged his clone’s death out loud until now. It feels too harsh, too blunt, like saying the words have made them a reality, even when he’s know it for months. The mind of Haggar’s clone is gone, all his thoughts and memories absorbed into Shiro’s own since he’s taken over this body. No matter how hard he listens, how he strains in the early hours of the morning, he can’t feel another presence in his head. Even if he’s scared of the idea of it, the possibility of his body being taken over or used for evil again, there’s always been that sense of loss, of wandering through an old home looking for someone long after the last candle’s gone out.

“I used to dream sometimes,” he mumbles. “Back before she took control of him, I used to think about finding my way back and there being two of us, me and him. What it’d be like, how everyone would react, how the two of us would get along.” He hugs Kuron closer, fingers catching in his shirt. “Even after everything, I know deep down he wasn’t evil, that it was all her doing that made him that way. That he was just trying his best, the same as I would if I were in his place. But…” he tries, words catching in his throat. He pulls back to wipe his nose, sleeve smearing what little tear drops have fallen. 

“But you know that that can’t be.”

He nods, letting the words sink in. It’s been… it’s never been something he’s been able to address. Everyone… the paladins, Coran, all their friends from back Earth and across the galaxy, they all let it fall to the wayside like it’s never happened, as if the very mention could set him off. In some ways they were right, but at the same time… there’s been a part of him that’s needed to face it, that needs to talk about it, until the jumbled yarn ball of feelings inside of him is able to find some form of order. And Kuron’s been one - and so far the first and only - to get him at least partway there. It’s by no means sorted out, there’s still loops and slipknots tangled together, but right now, sitting beside each other, he can feel a few of those knots have loosened. 

What would have happened if he hadn’t found Kuron that day? Or if he’d read the instructions, and never found himself with this Kuron here today? Would he have ever had this conversation? Would he even be having all these feelings jumbling up inside him right now? Shiro watches as Kuron notices a stain of cheese sauce on his shirt, forehead wrinkling as he begins to scrape away at it. 

It hits him so hard it’s like he’s been blindsided. That subtle fade of his eyebrows to charcoal at the wings, the way they pinched just so. Had his own brows ever looked like that? It felt like they should, but he’d never noticed it before. It could be some part of him… or something entirely Kuron. Now, with black hair the comparison is even more muddled. He’s known that colour, spent most of his life with it, but now, seeing it on Kuron’s head, he’s second guessing. Like his lashes, and how they started dark at the root and fade to wispy grey. Or the few stray brow hairs that flick off from the rest, not messy, but humanizing. The fade of Kuron’s cut too… it seemed more even than Shiro had ever managed in his life, transition so smooth he couldn’t tell whether it was length or colour that gave it that effect. It was… different, in a familiar way. Like he’s known it once before, but discovering it anew.

“Shiro, are you alright? You just keep staring at me. Are you…” he flinches, one hand jumping to the back of his neck, “Is it my hair? Do you not like it? I-I could try and cha-”

“No! Not that!”

Kuron jumps at his outburst and Shiro feels his cheeks go pink. 

“I… that’s not how I meant to say it,” he says, face hot. “You don’t need to change it, I don’t  _ want  _ you to change it. I don’t want you to change anything if you don’t want to.” 

Kuron blinks at him, perplexed, and Shiro lets out a sigh. His hand plants itself on Kuron’s knee.

“What I’m trying to say, what I  _ think _ I’m trying to say, is that I like it. I think it suits you.” 

And it does. It really does. There’s something about the dark hair that brings out different colours in his eyes, more blacks and greys, than Shiro’s white. It’s something familiar and and new, something that’s part  _ him _ and part other about it and somehow it feels right. Like it is how it should be. 

“You like it?” Kuron’s voice is quiet, but it can’t hold back the edge of puppy-like eagerness that creeps in. “You like how it looks?”

That softness almost takes Shiro's breath away. He stares at Kuron for several long seconds, just taking in the way his head cocks slightly to the side, eyes wide and open. “Yeah… It suits you. Black and white…” he smiles to himself, reaching out to comb his fingers through Kuron's bangs. “You and me,  _ Kuro  _ and  _ Shiro _ . I don’t know. It just… seems more you.”

The corners of Kuron’s mouth twitch upwards, but he doesn’t say anything else, just leans closer against Shiro until his forehead rests against Shiro’s shoulder. His face is hidden, but Shiro knows he’s smiling right now, one of those soft smiles that lights up his entire face with an internal glow. Thinking about it, he can’t help but smile too, letting his head fall down to rest on Kuron’s shoulder, their hair swirling together like a ying yang symbol.

He wants to bottle this moment, savour the subtle warmth that’s soothing his bones and making him relax. He knows he needs to be ready to head back out soon, knows he should be checking over the schedule for the day, but right now all he wants to do is sit a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can believe it, this used to be chapter 4 back before I went in and added a good six chapters to this to flesh the boys out more. The whole motivation for it was the fact that Shiro bringing up his clone all the way back in ch.2 and it just... didn't feel deserved enough. They weren't close enough, they hadn't built that trust, Shiro didn't see Kuron the way he does now, so yeah xDD as much as I hated myself for basically rewriting a good 2/3 of this, I'm so much more satisfied with it now


	9. Chapter 9

Despite his best efforts, Shiro’s yet to find another moment alone with Keith today.

There’s been diplomatic meetings and restocking negotiations, strategy meetings and battle talks behind closed doors. Shiro’s running all over the Atlas, her engines rumbling gently to him to calm down and relax, that he can walk slower and it will all be fine, but he hurries all the same. He’s racing enough that a stitch makes itself known in his side, hanging around long after it should and only disappearing as he sits down for lunch and devours a bowl of soup and stack of cookies. The rest of the team’s equally as voracious, though Hunk and Keith manage to slow down long enough to argue over whether or not Hunk’d added something new to the biscuits served with it. 

“I’m telling you,” Keith says from beside Shiro, “they smell different from your usual ones. Sweeter. Did you use some different honey or something?”

After that, well, there were even more meetings. There’d been a three second window, when he and Keith had both stepped into the same bathroom between debriefings from Kolivan, but any attempts to talk died with the flush of a toilet as one of the bridge crew members appeared from a stall.

He doesn’t even manage to find a time to check on Kuron until well into mid-afternoon, the sandwich he’d smuggled in his pocket now warm and the outer bread smeared with leaking mustard. 

He’s changing clothes for training exercises, something Kolivan’s been insisting on ever since watching the MFE pilots have their asses handed to them by Allura and Keith. Kuron - _ thank god _ \- seems to be doing a lot better this afternoon than this morning. He’s stretched out on the floor with a book, hand absentmindedly playing with the hem of his t-shirt. He’d perked up when Shiro’d come in, happily accepting the sandwich and a stack of cookies. They’d chatted for a little bit, but as soon as Shiro’d begun unbuttoning his jacket Kuron’d realized what he was up to and he’d immediately buried his face back into his book, only talking to Shiro while pointedly staring at the fine print. 

He appreciates it, that extra little bit of privacy Kuron’s giving him, even though technically everything he’s exposing is plain to see on Kuron’s own frame. 

Halfway through tugging on a pair of leggings Shiro stalls. He’s down to his undershirt and boxers, fabric up to mid thighs as he works them over the main meat of his legs when Kuron shifts on the ground, fully exposing the lower half of his chest. He doesn’t even seem to notice. In fact, he just keeps playing with his hem as he continues to read, flapping the shirt high enough every so often that Shiro can just see the bottom curves of his pecs. 

_ Fuck… _ Shiro’s never been one for ogling, always been the type of person to try and respect others boundaries, but right now he can’t stop. Maybe it’s the fact that technically it’s his own body, or that he knows Kuron isn’t exactly human. Maybe it’s just the fact that he looks effortlessly  _ ripped _ , the shadows of his arms warped on his stomach with by the contours of his abs, but Shiro can’t stop staring. He’s… he knows he has a pretty nice body, and that Kuron’s got the same one, but he’s never seen it like this, looked at it as a third person. It’s  _ hot _ . The way his waist pinches in and then flares out as it tapers up to his chest, how the muscles flex and move with every breath he takes. 

Even…  _ well…  _ Kuron  _ did _ change his hair, and it seems like the curtains very much  _ do _ match the drapes, a subtle little shadow of grey just peeking out from the waistband of his borrowed sweatpants. When he stretches, moves to turn a page, there’s an extra little rise to his chest, tugging everything up, revealing just a little bit-

“You almost done changing?” Kuron thumbs the edge of the page, head tilting back just on the verge of being able to make eye contact with Shiro. 

He tugs the rest of the leggings up incredibly fast after that, workout tank thrown on in record time. “Y-yeah,” he says, grabbing his running shoes and beginning the lace them up. “Almost.”

His pants feel too tight as he walks off to practice, but the warm shame of what he’d almost been caught doing keeps the worry of something showing at bay. He ducks into a side room just to check, but other than the extra hug of support the leggings give him compared to his uniform pants, there’s no signs of excitement showing. 

“You’re not a teenager anymore,” he grunts at himself as he steps back out. “You’re not supposed to have a problem on your hands just because someone looks at you.”

He says it, but the entire way down the halls to the training exercises, he makes a pointed attempt to think about nothing other than the mound of paperwork piling up on his desk. 

* * *

The training exercises are simple enough. Even though most of the battle will inevitably be fought with the lions and MFEs, he agrees with Kolivan there’s no way to rule out the possibility of a hand to hand fight against a rebel general. He and Kolivan are playing the enemies, sparing against the paladin and MFE pilots in a variety of combinations. The MFEs are weaker at hand to hand for sure, though Rizavi does have a mean right hook that catches him right in the solar plexus when he least expects it. In the end he spends more time working with them, really only transitioning them over to other groups with the paladins when he’s sure Kolivan isn’t going to mop the floor with them (Hunk’s already been tossed across the gym at least once already). They’re fast learners, and in just over and hour he’s sweating as he ducks shots from Leifsdottir as he and Lance go toe to toe. 

He manages to shove Lance far enough away to rack up with Kolivan, the two of them circling back to back as they prepare for the next wave of attacks. The BoM leader’s managed to disarm most of the rifles with (thank god) false knives, leaving them only suffering fire from one source as Allura, Keith, and Kinkade circle in, ready to for a final brawl to take them both down for good. Fists Shiro can deal with, and he’s more than a match for Kinkade as the boy tries to duke it out for him, easily flipping him over a shoulder and tossing him onto the mats. Kolivan’s a flash of silver with Keith, the two of them clashing prop daggers at such a speed no one even dares get close. 

Sweat’s dripping from his brow, heartbeat pounding as he spins around Leifsdottir. Adrenaline rushes through his veins as she spins her rifle on him and he lets instinct take over, grabbing the barrel and ducking back around. He twists his body, he arms following, and with a yell it comes away in his hands, flung to the corner of the room before he can try to move to take it back. 

It’s a high he hasn’t had in a long time, and he loves it.

Lance is back up, ready to come at him again with his sword and Kinkade’s slowly getting to his feet as well. Shiro manages to counter the one-two combination from them both but barely, only scraping by thanks to the lag Lance always has with his backhand. His prosthetic shakes as it takes the brunt of the blow and he stumbles closer to Kolivan, back pressing up against the Galra’s rear. There’s a squeeze on Shiro’s thigh and he reacts on instinct, ducking down as Kolivan spins about, butt of his dagger nearly clocking their assailants and forcing them to jump back. 

“Thanks,” Shiro grunts, swiveling around Kolivan’s heels as they swap partners and he’s now face to face with Keith. He can hear the clang of steel on steel as Kolivan’s blade connects with Lance’s and the yelps that follow as the tide is turned behind him. But there’s hardly any time for him to enjoy it, immediately forced to block a blow from Keith with his prosthetic. 

Keith’s eyes widen for a second at Shiro’s appearance but they’re back to laser focus in seconds, his bayard quickly taking on the shape of a short staff that he immediately spins and aims at Shiro’s waist with. He dodges, a laugh leaving him, and quickly reaches for the same weapon on his belt. 

It’s not going to be another battle of the black paladins again, that much they both know for sure, but that doesn’t mean they still can’t spar like the good old days. 

He’s never been great with swords and slashers, but Shiro’s always had a knack for sticks and swingables, things he could twirl around as a kid and balance on his palm. It served him well in the gladiator pits and it serves him well now, knocking poles with Keith as they both look for an opening to jab or trip. They dance around one another, Shiro never fully giving up his guard of Kolivan’s back as he transitions between shields and attacks as easily as a fish slipping through a stream. Spin, block, spin. Block, block,  _ attack _ . It’s a high of the moment, instinctual movement bred in through years of practice. He swings his body low, sweeping for Keith’s leg and rolling away the second he catches the blur of Keith’s staff whizzing towards his exposed shoulder, only to pop right back up ready to counter. He tries to spin Keith’s staff out of his hands, twist it from his grip, but Keith’s onto him, and like quicksilver he’s moving with Shiro’s motions, taking his momentum and reversing it right back onto him. 

He has to block the next blow that comes head on, arms shaking with the strength of Keith’s staff striking his. He’s in retreat now, letting Keith swing at him again and again, guarding his vitals as he looks for a new target to go for. It’s just a matter of time, a waiting game, until confidence gets the better of Keith and he’s able to attack once more. 

He can smell the exertion of battle on Keith, just as strong as it must be coming off of him. There’s something different about it, something different than the usual gym or everyday sweat. It might be from his year in the gladiator pits, or the sheer rush of endorphins that comes from fighting, this feeling, this dance is something that when it starts, he can’t seem to get enough of. Not until he’s won.

They slam together, staffs clashing, and for a second it fully washes over him, flecks of Keith’s sweat mixing with his own. His heart pumps faster, arms straining with exertion as he holds his own against Keith. Right now, in this second, Keith’s presence is almost stifling, his focus laser sharp, battle aura almost overwhelming him as the Alpha’s eyes roam over him, looking for a weak point to strike. 

He catches it just in time.

Keith lunges for a hit on Shiro’s side, leaving his own just as vulnerable. He pounces, whipping the flat of his weapon towards Keith but there’s a flash of violet beneath Keith’s brows and he realizes his mistake. It isn’t an opening, it’s a trap. He barely manages to bring his staff up in time, tip just managing to knick Keith’s and sending the worst of it’s force bouncing harmlessly off his arm. 

This is bad. Keith’s getting to know how he plays. He needs to figure out a way to throw him off his game, something to change up his patterns. He could go on the offence for a while. He could start playing a running game, hoping that the long range would tire Keith out faster than himself. Maybe he could even switch back with Kolivan, or the two of them swap for a moment, or—

Keith’s eyes go wide and Shiro’s stalls for a second, unsure of where the next swing will come from. By the time he realizes why it’s too late, a dark shadow blanketing him in milliseconds followed by it’s caster. 

Adrenaline shooting through his veins, he crashes to the floor beneath Kolivan. 

There’s cheers around him, the sounds of high-fives and ‘ _ way to go Allura!’ _ s, but that’s not what Shiro’s focused on. It’s not even how his knees smart or how his lungs feel like they’ve been bashed up into the back of his throat. 

It’s the weight of the body on him, and the heat. 

Kolivan’s immense, a wall on top of him. By the feeling of something rising and falling against his neck it seems like he’s landed facedown on Shiro, pinning him to the ground thanks to whatever Allura had done. Squished between his body and the floor Shiro’s acutely aware of every muscle, every drop of sweat on Kolivan. He’s blanketed with the smell of exertion and adrenaline and the heat they bring, the fire, now steadily leeching down into him. And with it, there’s another little feeling, of heat  _ elsewhere _ in his body, parts of himself waking up to the smell of strong male on top of him. His pants feel tighter, and he feels, he  _ knows _ there’s the beginnings of slick starting to form in his hole.

_ Oh god please not now please not now.  _

Keith’s voice is above him now and fresh air is breaking through the cocoon of Kolivan around him as he helps the BOM leader up off him, chiding Allura and Kinkade. 

“What the hell? You guys could have crushed Shiro!”

“But we took out two birds with one stone. If this was a real fight you’d be proud of us.”

“But this isn’t, and you almost knocked out the only guy that can fully control the Atlas! Shiro, you okay?”

He clenches his cheeks from where he’s still under Kolivan.  _ Fuck _ . He knows he was already stirred up from battle, that getting manhandled gets him going, but he didn’t think it’d be this easy to get a reaction like this out of him. He’s trying to stop his heart from racing, from his body reacting as it wants, thinking of every and any thing he can to try and stop himself from getting more turned on than he already is. The flooring rumbles gently beneath him, as if the ship is checking on him. He gives it a little pat as he tries to calm down the feeling between his hips, slick (thank god) not seeming to drip out of him.

“I’m alright,” he groans, moving slowly in the hopes of subtly checking how obvious his front looks right now. As he moves to get up he brushes back against Kolivan and the feeling of thick Galra thigh on the crack of his ass has him biting his tongue. “Just… got the wind knocked out of me. I’m-” he stumbles backwards a bit, nearly brushing into Kolivan in the exact same way. Keith catches him and hauls him back away, eyes wide, mouth worried into a thin line. 

“Are you sure? You don’t look so good. Here-” he drags Shiro over to a bench and begins looking him over. “No blacking out?”

He’s rattled, but not spacey. Not if the too-vivid ghost of Kolivan’s body on his own is anything to go by. “No.”

“Anything bruised or broken feeling?” He turns Shiro’s neck to the side, angling his face in the light before turning it back the other way. Shiro holds back the thought of Keith doing this to expose his neck, making him present. It’s just him being cautious, making sure he’s okay, which other than getting wound up like a highschooler he is. Still, his heartbeat refuses to slow down fast enough.

“Not that I know of.” Keith’s waving a finger in front of his face, trying to test his eye tracking. The protectiveness almost makes him chuckle. “Then again, my pride’s not feeling all that good right now.” 

There’s no missing the start of an eye roll from Keith as he twists Shiro’s neck the other way, checking for bruises or swelling. “You sound like Kolivan, if he was the type to make terrible dad jokes.”

Keith’s eyes begin to roam further over him. His muscles tense as they sweep lower, down towards his legs, and he prays there isn’t a tent down there waiting to be found out. It’s one thing for anyone to see that, but for his best friend, and an Alpha to boot, well, that’s not exactly something Shiro wants addressed in the middle of a crowded room. Heat’s sweeping to other places in his body, racing to fill his cheeks and ears in addition to down south now. He just hopes Keith finds something else, like a scrape or cut before he manages to notice that the shadow of Shiro’s bulge has grown larger since they’d started sparing. He leans closer, almost in scenting distance, and Shiro’s adam apple bobs as Keith’s grip tightens for a split second.

Keith’s eyes sweep back over Shiro’s neck, fingers sweeping down with his mouth in a tight line. Shiro thinks he catches a change in Keith’s expression, a little tick of surprise, but then it’s gone, the other paladin pulling back with a huff. 

“Okay… You seem alright, Kolivan doesn’t seem to have hurt you when you fell. But god help me Allura!” He swivels around on the bench to glare at her in the pack of onlookers. ”If you manage to kill Shiro like that after all we went through there’s going to be a major problem.”

Allura bursts out into another string of apologies, the other paladins and pilots offering their own condolences and whispering about what had just happened. Kolivan comes to sit beside him, ears flattened against his skull, a juice packet in his massive hand. He passes it to Shiro before pulling out another for himself and Keith. They exchange looks, Shiro and Kolivan, as the others begin to drift off into the excitement of an exercise well done. If Shiro’s not mistaken, the Blades leader looks almost embarrassed. 

“What’d she do to you?” he asks, Lance dancing around with Allura now, swinging her in his arms. 

“Lassoed my legs while the blue paladin distracted me.” It’s hard to miss how miffed he sounds about it. “A level one distraction and it worked.”

“Well,” they both watch as the younger team members dance around, chanting and hollering with Lance, “at least it seems to have been good for morale.”

“It does I suppose.” He sighs, looking over Shiro once more. His spine prickles as Kolivan’s nostrils flare, those pupiless golden eyes seeing who knows what on him. He’s not used to feeling small, but sitting next to Kolivan, feeling those intense eyes on him, thinking about that body blanketing him once more-

Shiro has to bite his tongue to stop from going down that train of thought again. What’s wrong with him? The battle adrenaline’s still in his system, but this feels like more than the usual rush he gets. Kolivan’s downright staring at him now, and it’s hard to ignore the way it makes him subconsciously squeeze his thighs tighter together.

Kolivan blinks, and that intensity’s gone as soon as it came. He pats them both on the shoulders, giving Shiro a little push off the bench and over to Keith as he does. “I have some strategies to discuss with Krolia.” If Shiro’d been paying more attention, he might have caught the look that’s traded between him and Keith as his fingers slide away. “I would suggest you take a rest and recover before tonight. I take it that you’ll both look after one another, correct?”

“We’re… I’ll make sure he’s alright Kolivan. Thanks.” Keith watches Kolivan disappear through the training rooms doors before turning to Shiro. “Probably best to take his advice, right?”

“R-right.”

Keith helps him up off the bench, unnecessary but something Shiro still appreciates, and leads him off towards the door. His hand is hovering by Shiro’s waist, not on,but just beside, and every few seconds Shiro can feel his gaze flick his way. 

“You know I’m okay, right? I’ve been knocked around more than that and still gotten back up.”

Keith’s arm jumps back to his side. “I know! I’m just… you can’t be too careful. I just want to make sure nothing happens to you.”

“I  _ know _ ,” he teases, trying to jab Keith with an elbow and missing spectacularly with the gap that is his new prosthetic. Juice almost comes out of Keith’s nose. His eyes well up, mouth stretched into a grin that’s part pain and mostly pleasure as he suppresses his laugh with a tremendous swallow.

“ Fuck, Shiro…” he wheezes, thumping himself on the chest a few times. “Don’t do that to me.”

“I didn’t even touch you.”

They both break out in cackles at that, much to the confusion of the others still left in the training hall. He gives Keith a side-armed hug, letting himself get a guilty whiff of sweat and Keith’s shampoo. Why he’s feeling guilty though he’s not sure. A hand comes to rest gently on Shiro’s back, firm but not quite a squeeze. It’s comforting, and they walk like that through several turns and hallways.

Shiro realizes this is it, that this might be the only time he’ll get alone with Keith. They’ve got dinner later with everyone, and then Lance is insisting on a movie night with the whole gang. His stomach clenches as he thinks about doing it. He tries to tell himself its nothing, that it’ll all just be some big laugh to Keith and he’ll welcome Kuron with open arms, but hours on hours of worrying don’t undo themselves that fast. He needs the right opener, the right starting point–

“Shiro, are you alright? You went all stiff.”

Keith’s looking up at him, one hand now hovering over where Shiro’s is clenching his friend’s shoulder.  _ Crap, he’d gone and gave a tell. _

“I–” he stammers, stomach doing little flipflops. “I have something I need to talk about. Something I have to get off my chest.”

Keith looks at him strangely, but says nothing.

“It’s… it’s not that I’m dying or anything! I’m fine! Really! It’s just…” he sucks in a breath, willing himself to stop stuttering enough that Keith will stop looking at him like that. “You know that time we stopped by the Galactic Metro Mall?”

_ Oh god… terrible start terrible start. _

Keith crosses his arms, not a good sign. “Yeah? What about it?”

“Well, uh.... You know how I disappeared for a bit near the end?”  _ What is he saying, of course Keith knows. He’d been who he’d been hanging out with the entire time up until then _ . “I sort of… stopped into a shop before we had to get back to the ship. A… private shop… for private things.”

Keith’s eyebrows are disappearing further and further behind his bangs. 

“An… adult store.”

They stop entirely, frozen in a cartoonish caricature of drawn on brows. “Oh. Uh…”

“I know it’s something we agreed not to talk about,” Shiro speeds on, “but trust me when I say this is important. I… got something.” His cheeks redden. “And I used it… and now…”

Keith’s eyes slide up and down Shiro’s body, finally coming to a halt dead level with Shiro’s groin. He can see how Keith’s nose twitches, like he’s scenting for something, and despite himself he finds he’s fidgeting in place.

“Did you… is it  _ stuck?  _ Like…  _ inside? _ ”

“Wh-” Shiro starts, but everything, anything else he could say is bowled out of him as Keith bends down to inspect his waist further. Keith… there was no way Keith thought… but then there’s the press of fingers against his middle, and then a palm as Keith kneads at his abdomen, searching for something.  _ Keith thought… _ Shiro’s face blooms bright red with the very idea of it. Kuron, stuck inside him. Of course, it wouldn’t be him, wouldn’t be his deactivated form either (although  _ god… _ that had been an amazing experience right up until the gut punching revelation of what he’d just stuck up there), but he could picture it hazily, Kuron’s front pressed up against his back, hips flush, cock buried to the hilt inside him. Something like a knot or god knows what keeping him in deep, rocking up against Shiro’s prostate every so often, pressing up against the bundle of nerves just-

He barely catches the noise he makes before it leaves him, squeezed off at the last second as a high pitched grunt. 

The silence that follows is deafening. 

“Did you… was that the t-”

“No!” Shiro’s mortified, he’s ready to curl up and die. He’s supposed to be breaking the news of Kuron to Keith, not fantasize about him fucking him while his best friend is at crotch level. This is supposed to be serious, he’s not supposed to getting turned on at a time like this, but every touch of Keith’s palm and dirty thought getting through his brain is fuel to the fire, adding more and more until he feels the first drip of slick at his entrance. Keith’s pressing harder now, looking for some bulge or bump to let on what it is, and it’s only getting worse, Shiro’s cock starting to stir now as well. 

“I can’t feel anything, is it something else? More of a ring, or plug? Or a-” Keith stops, pressing his ear against Shiro’s stomach and it takes everything Shiro has to keep from pitching a tent right in front of Keith’s face. “It’s not a vibrator…” And suddenly it’s ten times worse because Kuron no doubt has that function, and now he can’t stop thinking of a thick cock up his ass, buzzing merrily away as Keith tries to feel it from his front. 

_ What was wrong with him??? _

Finally, irrecoverably late Shiro manages to wrangle control back of his body, pushing Keith’s face back with a lurch of his stomach. Part of him wanted it gone, but another, equally vocal part, still wanted it there too. “It’s not a toy! There’s nothing in me right now, nothing-” he tries to continue on, to list of a range of toys, but embarrassment chokes him out. “That’s not what I’m wanting to talk about!”

Keith rocks back on his heels, slowly coming back up to standing. “Then what Shiro? When you started talking about sex shops and toys I figured something must be wrong. I mean… you’re not exactly the most open when it comes to your sexuality, I always figured you just used fingers and that red-” Shiro’s eyes bug out at him. “-A simple toy,” Keith correctly hastily, cheeks flushing as he looks down at his feet. “What do you expect me to think when you start a conversation like that out of the blue? I mean, you’ve been weird all week, and now-”

Keith’s eyes go wide, mouth falling open. 

“Now… now you’ve been weird since then. That morning where you woke up super late… that was the day after. And then ever since you’ve been off on your own a lot, we haven’t been able to find you, and-” he looks Shiro up and down again, lip worried behind his teeth. “Shiro…” he asks slowly, “whatever you got there, is it dangerous?”

“Wh- no! He’d never!”

“I know you think that! But do you know anything about alien sex toys?” Keith’s gnawing on his thumbnail now, face just as pained as it is red right now. “Look… I know a bit about some of them, okay? Stuff I picked up from Regris and the other Blades when I was staying with them. There’s a lot out there that’s fine, but there’s also a lot the borders on downright illegal. Like… there’s these fleshlights that pair to plug or ring toys that are sold separately and you can wind up getting fucked by  _ god knows what _ . Or there’s lube with additives that make it addictive, or-” he bites his lip. “Well… I really hope you didn’t buy one of  _ those. _ ”

“One of what?” he asks. His mind’s racing now, back to the panicked place it was a week and a bit ago when Kuron’d first peeked his head out from between his thighs. Kuron was safe… he was a sweatheart, a puppy, but…

“I don’t think you did,” Keith says, chewing his lip. “Signs should have shown way sooner if you had, but then again if you’ve been dealing with something and hiding it this whole time maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell.” He steps forwards again, sniffing around Shiro’s neck. “No… I really don’t think you wound up with one of those. I couldn’t feel anything, any unless you’ve been laying eggs all this week-”

“ _ Eggs? _ ”

“Well… yeah.” Keith glances up at him. “There’s these black market insertion toys Kolivan warned me about, they’re actually just transport holds for these parasitic organisms. They’re not deadly… but they just keep using the host to grow their eggs more and more and-”

“I… definitely not. Definitely… no parasite…”  _ Thank god _ , he moans internally _ , thank god I got was Kuron _ . “He- It’s not like that at all. But, well… it’s definitely alien. I’m not sure you’re going to believe me, but-”

His stomach gives a little flutter. It’s unsettling in how pleasing it feels, like there’s an animal inside him purring at the thought of Kuron just now. His knees weaken, balance suddenly swinging off kilter-

Keith catches him, tugging him back to upright and spinning him around to face the hall. “I believe you Shiro, and trust me, I’d love to keep talking about this later, but right now-” he begins guiding him back towards their rooms. “Right now I really think you should lie down for a bit. If you’ve got whatever you’ve bought lying around too, it might be a good idea to tuck it away too, just in case. Use something else for a few days.”

“Something else?” His brain feels foggy, like he’s a cup of coffee from being his usual self, still awake, but with everything coming to him a half second later. Keith’s steering him towards his room, he’s going to open the door, he’s going to see-

Shiro spins around, grabbing Keith’s shoulders for support as his balance follows a second after his body. “Keith. I need to tell you what’s going on, and I need to do it now. It’s important.”

“Is it a matter of life and death?”

He has to pause at that. His brain’s working double time with half the processors.

“Well… no.”

“And that thing… whatever you got, it’s not dangerous?”

“N-no!”

“Well then,” Keith brings a hand to the side of Shiro’s cheek, cool fingers patting the skin.  _ They feel so nice… why do Keith’s hands feel so nice? _ “Just… humor me for a few hours. You’re not quite yourself right now. Kolivan landing on you might have… triggered some things. All I’m asking is that you wait a few hours, take a shower, have a lie down. I could be wrong but-” he pauses, nose wrinkling, “I really think it’s best if you just relax alone for a little bit.”

“Keith,  _ please _ .” Shiro’s trying to be firm, but it’s so hard to focus on that authoritative tone when Keith’s hand feels so nice on his face. “It’s something I’ve been putting off telling you for too long already. I need to get it out in the open.”

Keith bites his lip, his nostrils giving a twitch as he looks Shiro over. His eyes are big, open like the expanse of the universe, but just like the night sky there’s no telling what lies beyond them. He can tell he’s thinking, mulling it over, but beyond that he has no clue. 

“One hour,” he says. “One hour, just let yourself recover a bit. If you’re still up for talking then come by my mom’s room. I’ll be hiding out there until Lance and the others drag me to movie night.”

“But…”

“ _ Shiro _ .” Keith’s fingers dig into his cheeks, pulling him down until they’re eye to eye. “I’m saying this as an Alpha and your friend. You’re not 100% right now. As much as I know you just want to rip the band-aid off on this, I’m pretty sure you’ll thank me later for making you wait a bit more.”

“Keith…”

The black paladin chews his lip. “Look… The way I figure it… if it’s taken you all this time to try and find the courage to tell me whatever this is, you want to do it right. An extra hour to find the words can’t do anything other than help that. Besides,” he steps back, combing a strand of hair out of his face, “I know… I know you’d do the same for me if it were the other way around.”

“T-thanks…” it’s something unexpected, but in the moment it has him almost tearing up with how sweet it is, and before he knows it he’s pulled Keith into a full on bear hug. 

“Wh-whoa now…” Keith startles, patting his shoulders until he releases him. “You okay?”

“Fine, fine…” he nods, pulling back with red cheeks. He’s not exactly sure what came over him. “Just got emotional for a second.”

Keith nods like he understands, waving his head towards Shiro’s door. “That’s okay. You should take a shower, or even a bath. It should help. And if you… uh… get up to anything else, just promise me it’s not with that mall purchase.”

“With… with that-” his cheeks go scarlet in recognition. “ _ Oh. _ No. No no no it’s not like that. It’s only-” he stammers, only to realize it’s pointless and Keith has no clue. “Okay. Promise.”

“Good. I’ll see you in a hour then? If you’re up for it?”

Shiro bobs his head in agreement and, with one final look back at Keith, makes his way towards his room. He’s not sure how, but Keith nailed the idea of a bath and now it’s all he wants in the world. For a second he entertains the idea of letting Kuron join too, see if he’d be interested or willing to soak for a bit with him. He’d… he’d suggested it before, the two of them squeezed in there, and it’d be his first bath too after all… but… Shiro shivers, entire body getting warmer. Considering the size of his tub, and the size of the two of them, there wasn’t exactly any breathing room to spare, it’d be a tight squeeze. A  _ very _ tight squeeze. His lips press together, thinking about it. 

No. He really shouldn’t. He’d just take a nice long bath by himself, put on some fresh clothes and practice what he was going to tell Keith a few times.

He sighs, muscles already loosening at the idea. Yeah. That sounded like a nice break.

* * *

Shiro rolls over with a groan, towel flopping over onto his face. He can remember getting out of the shower, tugging on a pair of pants and sitting down on the bed, but nothing past that. There’s something he needs to do, somewhere he needs to be, but his brain’s still in the process of booting up. He can feel the weight of Kuron’s arm on his shoulder, hear his quiet snores beside him. Sleep is calling him, lulling him back to it’s reaches, and groggily he wonders why he even woke up in the first place. It’s so warm… so safe here in bed… why would he ever want to…

A sharp pang jolts through his body,  _ the second _ he realizes, and he squeezes his thighs together at the feeling. He’s  _ too _ hot, fever bright and sweating, skin itching, clothes unbearable. With a shaky hand he reaches down, fingers sliding between his legs as he suppresses a whine. When he pulls them back his loins burn, fingers sticky and glistening in the low light.

_ Wet. Slick.  _ And now his insides were coiling in on themselves, desperate for relief. Shiro bites his pillow, sliding his fingers once more down his body and this time beneath his bottoms. His cock is rock hard, crotch a mix of pre and slick as he sinks his fingers lower still to where they desperately need to be. 

_ Not now… why now _ … he moans, but it’s too late for that. 

He’s in heat. 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MASSIVE UPDATE INCOMING
> 
> Overhauled this almost completely from what it used to be (chapter 5 ironically, back before the burn got me by the balls) and of course it becomes the beautiful hot mess that it is because yes I love to suffer and die as I write
> 
> I was hoping to have this out on Friday but clothing moths and disinfecting my entire apartment took priority this weekend so if you guys ever need to know how to deal with them hit me up because my 72 hours of suffering ideally should be for something

Face jammed into his pillow Shiro fights back noise as his fingers slide down the crack of his ass. He knows he should get up, get out of bed before he gets too riled up to sort through his toybox but his brain can’t seem to process anything other than the heat between his legs. His fingers rut against his entrance, rubbing back and forth and making the sensitive ring throb with need. Suddenly the goings on of the day before made a whole lot more sense. 

The cramping. The sweet smell Keith kept smelling… The fact he’d been getting worked up over next to nothing, hole clenching at just the thought or sight of a few inches of skin around Kuron’s waist. He bites back a laugh, stomach already sore. Keith’s insistence on him lying down and taking a bath made a whole lot more sense now too. Except instead of knowing it was coming like Keith’d probably thought, he’d been blindsided by it. 

He’s always been regular in his heats, every two months to the day, like clockwork. It made it easy to live life, schedule his days around it to make sure he kept the time around his heat clear and take suppressants at the right time if not. He could have sworn he wasn’t supposed to start for another three or four days, he hadn’t even had the usual slow start of symptoms. He should have gotten tired and touchy around his friends, or started having massive cravings for sweet things, or the wet dreams should have started up in the final few days of lead up, but there’d been nothing like that. 

He rubs at his middle, hot and tender. There was no way he was making it out of here to see Keith. Even if he did make it out the door and down the hall, he wasn’t going to subject him to that. Keith had control, he respected his boundaries, but no Alpha was at ease around an Omega in heat, just the same as he was when Keith was in rut. There’d be the underlying need to comfort, the distraction of his body screaming for attention. None of it was right for a serious talk, and both of them knew it. At least Keith probably didn’t expect him to show up tonight. At least, not if he’d guessed his heat was coming. 

Shiro rocks against his fingers, one already probing into the sensitive depths of his hole. He really should get up and find a dildo or  _ something _ to help calm himself down a bit. Maybe that one with the multiple knots he could pop in and out until he was able to fit the fully inflated feeling one into his ass.  _ Yeah…  _ that sounded good. More than good.  _ Great _ . His mouth waters at the very thought of it stretching him out. He makes to get up, muscles contracting...

Only to slam right back down onto the sheets.

Kuron’s arm is still draped heavily over him, fingers wound into the fabric of his shirt. As soon as he’d made to move they’d tensed, tightening their grip as their owner let out a drowsy noise of protest. Shiro lays there, motionless as he feels every shift of the mattress from Kuron’s movement. His clone wiggles into another position, warmth of one of his legs bumping against Shiro’s own, and after what feels like hours he finally falls still, hand still draped over Shiro’s frame. 

_ Fuck.  _

He’d almost forgotten about Kuron, he’d been so still up until now. But now… Shiro’s skin almost burns where Kuron’s limbs touch him, like they’re the sources of the heat now ebbing through him, stoking the coals in his stomach. He can’t ignore it no matter how much he tries, and he’s almost certain now that if he makes to get up for real Kuron’ll wake up and see what’s happening. 

For a second Shiro pictures it, Kuron waking to finding him dripping and needy. Of him hovering over his body like he did that first night, fingers sliding down his waist towards–

He bites his lip, pushing back those thoughts. He shouldn’t… that would be weird right? He cares a lot about Kuron, he wants to protect him, keep him safe. It’s… it’s brotherly, isn’t it? That’s the way he feels about Kuron. He wants to look after him, to make him happy, watch him grow. Even if he’s made for that kind of stuff, isn’t that a step too far? He… he’d be taking advantage of him. Kuron deserved better. He was more that just some toy. He shouldn’t be using him like that, even for fantasy fuel… Not even if right now all he can think about is Kuron over top of him, bedroom eyes the same as the first time they’d set their gaze on him.

No… he shouldn’t be thinking of that. He wouldn’t do it for a friend, then why-

Shiro stills at the thought of it, Kuron’s hair elongating and fanning over his cheeks, face thinner, frame smaller but no less strong. Of his speaking in a different voice, softer, with sharper edges as he crawls overtop of him, the thick smell of Alpha hovering around him. Of him pulling Shiro’s sweats down and sliding two fingers into Shiro’s waiting hole, eyes glittering like distant galaxies. He can picture it…. His Kuron with that voice… Kuron with another’s body but with same same gentle timber he can’t but always associate with him. He flickers between those two forms as Shiro imagines him opening him up on fingers and praise so filthy he feels like he’s already spilled over himself time and time again by the time they’d pull out. Of either of them looming over him, chest rising and falling as they line up, cock rubbing up against his entrance and—

Shiro slams his legs together, fighting back a moan and the thought of both faces above him as he took cock. He’d promised Keith he wouldn’t do anything with Kuron, he shouldn’t be breaking that trust with thoughts like this. But he’s desperate… so desperate and trapped between the wall and his sleeping double he  _ wants _ it so bad but that just has to be the heat talking, right? There’s no way there’s more to this… no way he’s actually…

Shiro shuts that thought down as soon as it tries to sprout up.  _ No. He can’t. It’s as simple as that. _ He’s got to stay strong and resist temptation. He’s ignored the smells of other Alphas during past heats at the garrison, he’s ridden them out alone in the gladiator pits. He can’t let a stupid heat whim make him lose all sense. He’s got to stay in bed and ride it out.... but he still has to do  _ something _ . If he just lays here, fingerfucking himself on one fingertip at this rate he’s going to be in for more trouble than just sweating and slicking through the sheets. He’ll be  _ desperate _ , desperate enough to do things even stupider than what he’s thinking of right now. Things he’ll most  _ definitely _ regret after coming back to his full self. 

_ Maybe… _ maybe he can just get himself off by himself. If he can just take the edge off, make his heat abate for long enough he can wait out the night until it’s close enough to morning he can sneak off and take enough suppressants to keep this at bay. It won’t be the same as if he’d taken them last night, it never is once it starts, but hopefully it’ll be enough to keep him from dripping slick all over the place desperate to be fucked. 

Slowly… so, so slowly… he reaches a second hand into his pants. He lifts his hips as high as he dares, just enough that his ass is raised and his cock is no longer digging into the bed below. He can do this. He lived in dorms before, he’s jacked off in silence like any normal guy has. He just has to keep his voice under wraps, keep his hips from bucking and Kuron’ll be none the wiser. 

His metal fingers are cold and thick against his half-hard dick, and with a groan he realizes he’s already having to change up his plan. The fingers at his backdoor slide out, hips stuttering at the loss before they’ve even had anything. He wants them back in there, but he knows which part of him needs the bulk his prosthetic brings. He shuffles his position, bracing himself on his left shoulder as his arm slides beneath him and his floating hand swings around to slide down his pants. He doesn’t have the same sense of touch with it, the same feeling as two thick fingers part his ass cheeks as they hook around, but already he knows he’s wetter than before. His slick soaked fingers wrap around his dick just at the first one probes into his loosening pucker. 

Shiro sinks in to the second knuckle and fights back a groan. It’s bigger than his own fingers and already it feels like nothing, no more than a tease as he pumps it in and out of himself, spreading slick up and down his passage. He presses his face deeper into his pillow, focusing on the feeling as his left hand begins to make short, choppy strokes up and down his shaft. It’s  _ something _ alright, but not enough, and before long he’s stuffing in a second along beside it. 

That’s a little better. Shiro arches back, giving his fingers better access to his hole as they slowly stretch him out, tugging and rubbing against his ring. If he works it just right he can feel them brush against the bundle of nerves inside him, sparking that extra little bit of touch he’s desperately needing. He angles deeper, thrusting them in and out faster, harder, trying to graze against the spot more and more. His cock is steadily hardening, dripping pre into his sweatpants along with the mess of slick that slops noisily from his hole and dribbles down the cleft between his legs, pooling around his balls before dripping down onto his hand and dick.  _ Fuck _ … he wants dick, wants something  _ bigger _ ,  _ longer _ , but this is what he has for now and he’s going to fucking make the best of it. 

He starts scissoring himself, fingers spreading as he pulls them out, giving that extra little stretch that makes his insides tense and relax at the feeling of being pulled apart further. God… if he had his pick now he could be using that nice fat dildo, the one with extra nubs and curves on it that really messes him up, driving in so deep and grinding against his prostate multiple times for every shove of it in or out. His mouth almost waters at the memory of the feeling, how it feels to have himself stuffed like that, barely an inch of dick that lets up on assaulting the most sensitive part of him. He’ll grab it later… later… when Kuron’s awake and distracted. Maybe he can even fit the whole thing in his ass, walk around like that, stuffed full and fucked with every step he takes, desperately trying to hold back his voice as he’s forced to walk the hallways with everyone else unaware of the secret between their captain’s legs. 

His strokes speed up at the thought of it. Fuck… the idea of secretly getting fucked while no one’s the wiser is getting him closer, making him almost  _ hope _ he can make it become a reality. What would they say if they found him like that, smelled the slick on his thighs or spotted the wet mark in his pants? Would they be disgusted, or would they drag him away into the nearest room and bend him over, fucking him with abandon until he’s squirming from their dick inside him?

He slides in a third finger and his entire body shivers at the thought. 

It’s been so long since he’s had real cock. What would it be like? Would they be rough or gentle? Would it be fat and heavy and long and lean? He screws his eyes shut, hazily picturing a shadow over top of him, hands on his hips, holding him up, while fat fingers roam about in his hole, telling him what a slut he is for being this open already. Fuck… it could be one of the nameless engineers, it could be one of their resistance allies,  _ hell _ … he’d take anyone’s cock right down to the knot, so long as they fucked him right, thrust into him until he’s seeing stars and coming on the feeling of them filling him out. 

_ Shit… _ it gets him going more that he’s ready to admit, cock rock solid in his hand, fingers soaked with his arousal as he continues to fuck himself on them, faster and faster and faster as he feels the heat in his belly being to approach fever pitch. He’s so close, he can feel it, so ready to come for his Alpha, ready to spill for them, milk their cock until they’re coming dry inside him and then some. He wants it… wants it so bad, he can almost picture it, their gaze on his back as he bucks into his hand, watching their desperate Omega work himself in front of them. 

“Please…” he whines into the pillow, “please Alpha…” He’s teetering near the edge, so close the release he  _ desperately _ needs, but not quite. More… he needs more. More filling him out, more fucking him. 

Shiro shifts, trying to get a better angle for the fingers furiously fucking his ass, cheek digging into the sheets as he does.  _ Just a bit more… just a little bit more... _ he groans. He’s almost there, just another inch, just one more inch inside him and he’ll let loose, just that extra stretch and he’s a goner. 

His eyes crack open hazily as he struggles to gain control over his pinky, sliding it up against his other fingers and trying to work it inside himself.  _ More… more… _ he gasps…  _ need more _ … The light from his arm casts a shaky glow over the room, shadows dancing violently on the walls as it rapidly fucks itself against his ring trying to work itself inside. He can see the erratic shape of his hips against the wall opposed to him, see the shadow his prosthetic casts where it floats in the air, fucking him for all it’s worth as it finally,  _ finally  _ works that pinky inside. And just as he does, as his orgasm reaches boiling point and bubbles over, eyes squeezing shut as he rides it out.

It hits Shiro like a truck, cock spurting furiously into his hand with short spurts of omegan release as his ass clamps down around his fingers and furiously milks them, working them for every last shred of orgasm they’re worth. His world is white, fireworks on fireworks as his entire body shakes with release, hips stuttering up up up as he keens to keep everything inside himself. It’s sudden and hard and all too soon he’s washing back down from it, muscles loose and pliant as he slumps against the bedding, heat in his stomach reduced to a simmer for now. 

Slowly he comes back into himself, pants a mess, breath shallow. That was good… a good start, but even so he can feel his ass protest as he begins to work his fingers out, fresh flames already starting to lick at his insides when he does. He’s probably going to need to do it again before the night’s up, maybe to the point he’ll need to use his thumb as well to finally satisfy himself, but for now he can just try and relax, make sure Kuron’s still asleep and get some of his o-

Shiro’s eyes finally uncross long enough to focus in front of him, smack onto the  _ very _ awake face of Kuron. 

“Oh…” he squeaks. 

His fingers pop out of him with a wet noise. He swears he can hear the slick sliding down his legs it’s so silent, Kuron stock still as he continues to stare at Shiro with a face he’s never seen before. 

“I… it’s not what it looks like?” 

He says it before he really thinks it through, because  _ of course _ it's  _ exactly _ what it looks like. His bottoms are halfway off, fist still around his dick and prosthetic still hovering above his fingerfucked ass. Kuron could have been a vegetable peeler and he’d still have known exactly what this was.

Kuron props himself up, and only just then does Shiro register his hand had left his shoulder somewhere in all his masturbating. There’s a crease down the center of his brow, a wrinkle in his nose as he looks Shiro up and down, lips thin and tight. 

“Then what exactly is it?”

Shiro’s cheeks flush and he wipes his hand furiously on his pants debating on what he should say. There was a chance Kuron didn’t know anything about Omega biology, which in that case meant he could come up with anything, but if he even knew a shred of anything… He sighs. Kuron wouldn’t lie to him, it wouldn’t be fair to not do the same for him. He’d just glance over it, downplay it so that he wouldn’t worry.

“It’s… it’s not a big deal,” he says, trying to act as nonchalant as he can as come dries inside his sweatpants. “Just something that happens to me sometimes. I go into heat and have to deal with it. You don’t have to worry.”

Kuron frowns, leaning closer. Shiro tries to pull away but Kuron’s hand’s already on his brow, deliciously cool as he pats it against his temples, cheeks, and neck. “You don’t look good. And you’re warm, like you’ve got a fever. I have a hard time thinking that that’s nothing to worry about.”

_ God, that hand feels so nice _ , Shiro half hopes the other joins it and starts touching him as well. “S’nothing, really,” he says, half-heartedly swatting it away. Had he ever noticed how gentle Kuron’s touches were before? He feels like he should mention that at some point. “Just a part of being an Omega. Every few months I go into heat and I’m a bit horny for a few days.”

“Really…” Kuron’s brow cocks as he stares down at Shiro’s crotch. His hand has slid down to rest against Shiro’s neck, right against his scent gland and  _ FUCK. _ He wants it to tighten against it right now. But of course it’s not, because it’s not Kuron. “Is  _ that _ what you’re calling it? Because what you were doing looks more that ‘ _ a bit horny’. _ ”

It’s still there, firm, holding him in place in case he wobbles, strong and supportive and Shiro’s just  _ sinking _ into the feeling of it. “Okay, okay… more than a bit horny,” he admits. Kuron’s touch feels so good right now on his heated skin. He doesn’t think he can pull himself away without Kuron making the first move. It’s been years now since he’s shared a heat with someone and his stupid Omega brain is thinking things, even with the cool down of his recent orgasm. Thinking about how easily Kuron can move him around, how well he’d be able to play his body.  _ Fuck _ … he even had that monster cock, one he could make as big and thick as Shiro wants… He’s almost salivating at the very idea of it.  _ Maybe… maybe it’d be a little okay _ … Yes… it’d look so strange to anyone else, the looks, the judgement he’d get after… but it’d be so good. He hasn’t seen Kuron naked since that day, but he already knows how perfect he’d be. But that might not be what Kuron wants. What if it stirs up more insecurities there? What if he does something that has Kuron doubting him worth even more?

Kuron’s hand slides back away and Shiro chases it with a whine, both of their eyes going wide as he realizes what he’s just done.

“Okay, a lot horny!” he cracks, ears heating. He’s hot and itchy now, clothes stifling against his skin. The beginnings of fresh slick are starting to make themselves known between his legs. It wasn’t uncommon for early heats to be especially strong for Omegas and this seems to be no exception. “For 72 hours I just want to fuck, and there’s only so much I can do to control it once it’s started. Suppressants will help a bit, but I still have to get most of it out of my system before they’ll even work.” Hot shame floods his cheeks, and he finds himself slinking back away from Kuron, closer to the wall. “It’s starting back up now. The symptoms. Looks like I didn’t do enough to deal with it on my first try.”

His clone looks at him, a mix of worry and pity just discernible in the dark. “So just then…”

Shiro nods, face red. “Yeah… I was trying to sate it, long enough to get back to sleep. Normally I’d get up and grab some toys, but you had your arm around me, and I couldn’t move, and I didn’t want to...” his fingers fist themselves in the sheets. His whole body is prickling right now, a whole new level of desperation washing over him. 

He bites the inside of his cheek, trying to fight back the urges bubbling up. “I need to do it again, before I totally lose myself to it. Can you…” he points, ears flaming as hot as his insides as he points at the end table drawer beside Kuron. “Can you just… take something out from there for me?”

Kuron moves slowly, never taking his eyes off Shiro for a second. He reaches down fingers grasping the handle, pulling the toy drawer open-

“Why?” His hand freezes in place. Shiro’s squirming now, insides making themselves  _ very _ known that they’re empty and waiting. 

“B-because…” Shiro gasps, thighs clamping together as he tries to hold back the need to touch himself. “I need to fuck myself on something. I need one of my toys,  _ now _ !”

Kuron frowns. He slams the toy drawer shut and crawls closer. Shiro’s stomach creeps up his throat at the sight of broad, strong shoulders coming towards him, guts twisting in anticipation. 

“No.  _ Why? _ Why do you need one of  _ them _ ?”

Shiro’s panicking a bit now. There’s desperation bubbling up inside him and he swears if he doesn’t get anything in him soon he’s going to knock Kuron over in his dive for something in that drawer. “I just told you! I’m going to go into full heat! I need something to fuck it out of me  _ fast _ , or else there’s going to be more to worry about then just some wet stains on the sheets.”

Kuron’s almost on top of him now, leaning forwards on all fours as he stares Shiro down. His body is screaming, slick dripping out of him at the sight of it. It’s like a fantasy come to life, but his heart is beating for reasons entirely different now. 

“No. I’m asking you, why won’t you use  _ me _ ? You said you need a toy. Well, I’m right here. Use me.”

“I…” Shiro croaks. Kuron’s so close he can count eyelashes now, smell the faint smell that he emanates like his own, except deeper, muskier.  _ Fuck… _ it smells good, good enough that he’s finding it harder and harder to find the words he’d been using earlier. Stuff on how much he cares about Kuron. How he’s not just some normal toy. “You’re… you’re different.”

“Different how?” Kuron’s shucking off his shirt now, and Shiro can’t tear himself away from the ripple of muscle as it’s pulled off in a single motion like liquid silk. God… he hasn’t seen anything like it in years outside of porn. “Different in that I’m not some sad hunk of plastic? That I can actually hold you? Fuck you? Bend you in half and come inside?”

“No! Yes! I…” Shiro swallows, his heartbeat thundering in his skull. Fuck… Kuron could come inside? The reasons he’d had to say no were rapidly falling to the wayside, replaced with his hindbrain screaming out with need to be fucked, mounted, and claimed. “Kuron… are you sure it’s a good idea?”

Kuron frowns. “You mean… using me how you’re supposed to? How is it  _ not _ the right solution to this. You need to be fucked, I’m here, willing to fuck you. What do you not get here?”

_ Oh god… Kuron said it _ . He actually said it, but as much as Shiro’s heart is pounding, as much as fresh blood floods to his cock, he fights himself. Willing… willing didn’t mean Kuron wanted to. It meant obligation, it meant Kuron fulfilling what his programming said he had to do without question. That wasn’t… it’s not what he wants for him. It’s not-

“I-I don’t want to just use you,” Shiro stammers. “It… it feels wrong.” 

Kuron goes still above him.

For a second he thinks something’s broken, that Kuron’s stopped working entirely, that that light is flickering out. It’s so wrong the heat rapidly building in Shiro’s belly sizzles out, replaced with a lump of lead. Something’s changed in Kuron. His eyes are dim, the skin of his face greyer, more drained. He looks tired, like he’s aged two years in two seconds and a whine rises in Shiro’s chest as he makes to sit up. He reaches out, palm coming up to cup Kuron’s face, only for Kuron to turn away, nose buried behind Shiro’s fingers. His stomach churns for an entirely different reason now.

“Kuron… what’s wrong?” he asks, trying to catch something in those masked eyes that’ll guide him to what to do. “Are you okay?”

He knows he’s not, that something’s definitely wrong, but he needs to give Kuron that space, that choice to decide whether or not to share. It’s… he knows he doesn’t have to, that he really shouldn’t feel this way, but… Treating Kuron like another vibrator or dildo… the thought of it makes every hair on Shiro’s body stand on end. He’s… he’s not another disposable toy. He’s got a personality, he’s got feelings. He’s  _ real _ , and right now he’s hurt.

“Is that how you really feel?”

Shiro stills. Kuron’s voice stabs straight through his chest. It’s too hollow. Defeated. 

With a second jab to the heart it hits him.

He can hear it now, how his words must have sounded to Kuron.  _ He’d… he hadn’t been meaning it that way. He’d meant- _

“Kuron…” Shiro gulps. He tries to turn Kuron’s head to face him, but his clone keeps shaking him off, pushing his hand away. His stomach is bubbling away now, guilt and nauseous empathy rising. “Kuron, I’m sorry!” He keeps trying to bring Kuron’s focus on him, but again and again Kuron twists away. “I didn’t mean it like that. I… there’s nothing wrong with you! I shouldn’t have said that, it’s not true, it’s not what I wanted to say I-”

Kuron slaps his palm, hard enough to smart. 

It has Shiro shellshocked enough to freeze. 

Kuron has him paralyzed in place.

He sits over him, body wilted like a flower in drought. His bangs flop over his face, casting it into shadows. It feels so empty, a husk of the real Kuron, Shiro’s body is screaming at him it feels so wrong. When he speaks, it comes from someplace far, far away, so quiet Shiro’s breathing stops trying to catch it.

“You don’t have to keep doing this.”

Every ounce of heat in Shiro’s body turns to ice. Despite every fibre of his muscles, every cell in his brain screaming at him not to, he finds his lips forming the words.

“Do… do what?”

“This!” Kuron’s voice cracks. For the first time he manages to make eye contact with Shiro, the sight making even his second wind die in his chest. Tears are beading in the corners of Kuron’s eyes, pooling at the edges and slowly spilling down his cheeks. “Keeping me around, reminding yourself of that other you that you lost! You said it yourself, I’ll never be them. I can’t replace them and-” he chokes, adam’s apple bobbing as he looks away. “And I knowing that… I know it can’t be easy for you. Being with me. So… so I’ll say it again. Deactivate me. Hide me away… whatever… whatever you need to do… I’ll let you…”

“Kuron…”

He shakes his head. “I know what I am. You think I matter, but the truth is you could replace me a dozen times over and never know the difference.”

“I would!” 

“No, you wouldn’t!”

_ No… he would.  _ The way he plays with Kosmo, or how the expanse of his eyes seem to deepen as he listens to him ramble on about stars for hours. How cute he looks when half asleep and how he clutches at Shiro’s shirt every time he drags himself out of bed. Of how he’s so shy whenever he tries to get close to him, testing the waters before letting himself press up against him and sling an arm around his side, contrasted with the quick, bold movements he makes jumping to action when something startles him. Shiro couldn’t… he’d never not be able to notice all that, memorize every last little quirk. He’s… He’s Kuron,  _ his Kuron…  _ there’s… there’s no replacing that. No changing how his heartbeat pounds in his ears at the sight of him right now. He can’t bear watching him like this. He… he’s perfect the way he is, he’s sunshine, he’s rain, he’s-

The Omega in Shiro reacts on instinct. He reaches out, grabs Kuron by the neck and pulls. Pulls Kuron right back in until they’re face to face, until he can see every pore on his skin, see the way his eyes widen and jaw go slack. And he keeps pulling, leaning forwards even further, until their lips touch.

Both their eyes go wide for a second, Shiro just catching how Kuron’s pupils react to the impulse that shocks even him before he gives in to the feeling and lets his lids flutter closed. It starts chaste, kissing into and against his just-parted lips, and then Kuron’s opening up and Shiro dives into Kuron’s mouth. He feels the heat of his tongue on his own as hands come up to hold his own cheeks, feels fingers flex and tense against his temples as he’s guided deeper into this, mouths sliding together as something clicks into place inside his head.

This… this isn’t just fondness. This isn’t protective instincts, or senses of duty. It’s so much  _ more _ , and he’s been too stupid to realize it. He’s been fighting against these feelings for days now, ever since the first stirrings in his chest waking up that first morning. Ever since he’d seen him take his first bites of jam, or that first soft smile of his. It’s… it’s deeper than protecting them from history repeating itself, more than just selfish reasons or basic worry holding him back from sharing him with others. 

It’s more than heat suppressed inhibitions. It’s real.

Shiro moves deeper into the kiss, letting the taste of Kuron wash over him. 

He’d kept telling himself no, that it wasn’t right… that Kuron was a clone or a toy and these feelings shouldn’t be happening. He shouldn’t feel so attached… so charmed by it all, but he _ is _ . He wants more of Kuron, wants to give more of himself to Kuron, wants to travel deeper down this uncharted road and right now all concerns of judgements are gone, replaced with this warm feeling ringing at his core. 

They part, gasping, Kuron’s eyes wide as Shiro’s chest rises and falls. A string of saliva connects them both, hanging between them until it breaks with a pop of droplets. 

“Y-You...” Kuron stammers, “Y-You… you kissed me...” His fingers slide to his lips, and Shiro can’t help but lick his own to feel the remaining warmth lingering there. 

“Y-Yeah… I did...” It doesn’t feel real, and yet it has to be, because there’s no other way Shiro’d be able to imagine the feeling of Kuron’s lips against his own or his tongue curled deep in his mouth this vividly. There’s schoolboy blush across his cheeks and it’s more than enough for Shiro to want to lean over and do it again. He almost does, nose barely trailing against Kuron’s when he’s held back. The look Kuron’s giving him gives him flashbacks to that night, only their faces are switched. Shiro more certain, taking control, Kuron immobilized, shocked beyond anything he could imagine.

“Wh-why?” 

_ Fuck. _ Explaining why is a thousand words Shiro’s yet to even know himself, and yet… he knows them, even if he doesn’t know how to string them together just so.

“Because. I care about you. I-” he breathes, “and I don’t want to see you cry. I don’t want to be the reason you cry. I think I knew that for long enough, but when you collapsed, and now…” he runs his hands through his hair, letting his cheek rub against Kuron’s and spread remaining tears over his own. “Now I think I’m finally realizing why I feel these things. Why I’m so scared of anything happening to you. Of my friends not accepting you.”

“It’s because of him-”

“No, it’s not!” Shiro grips the back of Kuron’s head, makes him look at him,  _ really  _ look at him as he speaks. Maybe it’ll make up for what his words can’t get across.

“I… I like you a lot Kuron.  _ You. _ Not anyone else. Not anyone who looks like you. And I like you a lot a lot, as in more than I was ready to let myself feel. And it’s scary, and new, and uncharted, but… but the thought of letting you go, of getting rid of you?” He squeezes his fingers in Kuron’s hair. “That’s even scarier. It’s one thing I know I’d never let myself do.”

A dozen emotions flash over Kuron’s face in a second. “But… but you said… you said you didn’t want me. Just now… You said you wouldn’t use me.” His voice is a cocktail of pain and confusion. There’s a tremor there, something unsteady and Shiro finds himself bringing Kuron’s forehead to rest against his own, one hand moving down to take one of his.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He squeezes Kuron’s hand, stomach a mound of bricks. “I… Kuron… When I see you, I don’t see myself, I don’t see my other clone. I don’t see some toy I can just play with and put down when I get bored. I… I see  _ you _ . All of you. And I don’t want to treat you like less than you are.” 

He combs Kuron’s locks back, stroking the hair against his scalp as Kuron lets out a wet noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper.

He moves closer, pulling Kuron into a hug as he continues to stroke. “I… I want you to feel special, like the person that you are. Because you are that to me. You’re… you’re so much more than I ever thought possible. You’re you, and I… I love _ that _ . I love... I love  _ you _ .”

“You do?”

Kuron’s looking at him, starry eyes bright and dewy behind smears of tears still left there.  _ God… he was so precious, so perfect even when he cried _ . It takes everything in Shiro from keeping from leaning forwards and kissing the remaining drops from them. Instead he settles for the cheeks, nose rubbing against soft skin as he gently scents Kuron. Their lips come together and it’s salty and sweet like lemonade after potato crisps.

“I do. You’re something I didn’t know I wanted, didn’t know I needed.” He sinks in closer, letting his lips press against the corner of Kuron’s. “I don’t know if I deserve you. I feel like up until now I’ve done a terrible job of showing you what you mean to me, but if you’re willing, I want to start making it up to you. From now on. If… if you want that, that is.”

Arms snake around his chest, a firm hand wraps itself at the base of Shiro’s neck, holding them close. A voice comes from somewhere against Shiro’s neck, as soft and light as a newborn chick. 

“I… I’d really like that. If you’re sure.”

Shiro squeezes him, giving in and letting himself nuzzle closer, press his nose into the warm junction of Kuron’s collar. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Kuron snuggles closer to him, arms and even a leg draping themselves over Shiro’s frame as the remaining traces of tears drain out of him. He hits Shiro’s prosthetic out of the air with a knee, the mechanism beeping and whirring in irritation at being knocked out of alignment and they both laugh. Kuron’s is wet, there’s still traces of mucus and snot in its tone but it rings bright and clear in Shiro’s ears. He worms around until he finds a position it stops fighting him for, Shiro propped up against the wall as Kuron reclines on his front.

It’s… it’s different from how Kuron’s always held him until now. Usually… usually there was always an edge of space between them. In sleep Kuron’d drape an arm, more than cling. Even when he’d actively hold, trying to comfort Shiro it had been strong, reassuring. Now… now he almost clings like a child, fingers knotted in Shiro’s shirt, seeking reassurance of his own. It’s subtle, but a change nonetheless, as if the final doors between them have been knocked down. He wonders for how long Kuron’s wanted to do this, cling like this, and the thought has him pulling him more into his lap, rubbing his face against Kuron’s to scent and comfort. 

“Please… be more selfish.” Kuron tries to move in Shiro’s hold, but he keeps him there, hands stroking his bare back as he coaxes Kuron to nuzzle closer against him. “I mean it. I’ve been alone for a long time, and I know I’m not great at reading people, but if there’s something you want, I want to give it to you. No matter how stupid you think it is.”

Kuron takes pause at that. “I… I never really thought much about it.”

“But, there’s stuff you’d like, right?” Shiro hefts him closer, letting the weight of Kuron on him press him harder against the wall. “Stuff you thought about asking for, but stopped yourself?” The weight on his front in comforting, like it’s always supposed to have been there. He lets out a little hum of contentment as he plays with Kuron’s hair.

“Well…”

“C’mon,” he coaxes, bouncing Kuron a little against himself, “tell me.”

Kuron stirs to look up at Shiro, chin propped against his chest. “Well, I really want to learn more about plants. And help Ms. Holt fix the garden area Kosmo got into. And I want to try all your favourite foods and I’d like to meet Hunk and ask him how he’s able to make food so good and I’d like to meet Matt and know why you say his choice of games sucks so much and see the Lions and watch Voltron form and-” he catches himself, cheeks burning scarlet as he hides his face in Shiro’s pecs. It’s so endearing Shiro can’t help but laugh. 

“Is that it?” he asks, hand carding through Kuron’s bangs. “Nothing else?”

“I…” Kuron balks, “well…” His eyes flick up and down, lips worried between his teeth. “I mean, there’s a lot more, but I think right now that’s enough.”

“You sure?”

Kuron nods into his chest. “Yeah. Right now, this-” he wiggles against Shiro’s body, pulling him half into his lap and half using his pecs as a pillow “-is enough.”

Shiro smiles. “Then it’s enough for me too.”

He lets his head rest back against the wall, lets his eyes close along with Kuron’s as they settle in to the warmth of one another. There are little damp patches on Shiro’s shirt from the final traces of Kuron’s tears but he can’t bring himself to care. Instead he focuses on the gentle rise and fall of Kuron’s chest against his belly, or the warm tickle of his breath on the nape of his neck. It feels so nice. Feels right. He’s always had to work himself up to intimacy like this with other people, body prickling over the chastest of touches, but with Kuron touch is almost soothing. It’s reassuring, feeling him there, feeling his weight, his heat, his-

“Sh-Shiro?”

“Mmm?” he hums, eyes still closed as he steeps in the moment. 

“Are you… are you still in heat?”

“Wh-” he starts, but then he feels it too. 

Slick, dripping down the junction of his thighs.

“I-” he croaks, trying in vain to climb off Kuron. He can see the boarder of a wet patch on the other’s sweats.  _ Fuck, he had to have been wet for some time now, there was no other way it could have gotten that bad. _ “I’m sorry! I didn’t even feel it, and now you’re-”

“ _ I’m  _ sorry,” Kuron squeaks, eyes flicking down in shame and Shiro realizes a second thing. 

Something’s butting up against his ass cheeks, resting perfectly in between them like a third leg supporting his hips. Because it is. 

Kuron’s hard. 

“I… It’s always automatic,” he mumbles, still not looking at Shiro but making very little effort to move. “Whenever you get excited I do too, it’s just how it works. I… I can leave if you need to I don’t ha-”

“Do you want to?”

“ _ Want? _ ” Kuron gawks up at him, ears the cutest shade of pinkish-red. “I… but it’s  _ your heat! You’re supposed to-” _

“No, I’m asking you,” Shiro says, heat suddenly very apparent as it builds in his lower stomach. All those fantasies from earlier are flooding back, each one more vivid than before. “Do you want to?”

“I-I mean… yes, but… but you made it sound like-”

“Kuron,” Shiro breathes, letting himself rub down ever so slightly on the bulge beneath him. It feels massive, he can’t help but let out a little groan as it grinds against the soaked fabric of his bottoms. “When I said I didn’t want to use you, what I meant is I didn’t want to use you as a toy. I’m not about to make you do anything you don’t want. But if you  _ want to-” _

Kuron gulps audioably, eyes once again fixed anywhere other than Shiro’s face. The red from his ears has crept into his cheeks and is slowly seeping down his neck, a blushing virgin finding himself here for the first time.

“I… I’d like to.  _ A lot _ ,” he gulps, and the bulge seated in Shiro’s crack gives a little twitch. “S-so…. Does this mean.”

Shiro nods… breathing uneven as he forces himself to lift off Kuron’s thighs. His legs feel like jelly, slick sliding down them, but he can’t deny what he’s feeling right now. He’s so empty, so  _ in need _ , Kuron’s drawing him in like a fly to honey, but it goes beyond that. Yes, it’s his first heat fuck in a long time, but it’s also their first time. Something he wants them both to remember for years to come. 

He reaches up and sweeps Kuron’s bangs out of his eyes, wanting to see every line of storm grey in those eyes.“It does…” he breathes, voice raspier than usual. “If you want to, I do too.” His fingers are at his waistband already, sliding his pants down the globes of his ass until they fall free and pool around his knees. Kuron sucks in a breath as the cool air hits Shiro’s thighs, and there’s no mistaking the sudden twitch of  _ something _ in his shorts. Shiro slides a hand up Kuron’s thigh, just as he takes his double’s palm and slides it down stomach, traces of his last orgasm still smeared over his abs. He leads it down through the thin white hairs that line his happy trail, can’t help but smile as Kuron’s face lights up in sheer disbelief as he guides it lower, to the place now dripping between his legs.

Shiro leans forwards, lips leaving a trail of kisses across the shell of Kuron’s ear as he nuzzles the other in comfort. “I’m ready Kuron,” he whispers. “It took me days to realize it, but I know what I want now,” and as if in in punctuation, he grinds down against Kuron’s palm. Kuron’s fingers feel so good… so right on his flushed sink. Even the subtle little tremble to them, the way they skim against his entrance… it’s all perfect. He wouldn’t have it any other way. “Go ahead,” he breathes, cheek rubbing against Kuron’s own. “I want you. I need you _ ... _ ” 

He can feel the second Kuron accepts his words, those fingers jumping against his hole, jolting up into him. He swallows down a groan as he rolls into them, only for his hips to give chase as they retreat away. Shiro lets out a grunt of frustration, bracing himself on Kuron’s shoulder as he rucks up against the other’s wrist, squeezing it between his thighs. Kuron eyes him closely as his pointer finger circles around Shiro’s pucker. 

“Are you…” he starts, but just then Kuron presses in and Shiro takes the chance for all it’s worth, pushing down against it, only for it to retreat again. “Are you really?” he hisses, body boiling now at Kuron’s taunts.

“I’m just checking you,” Kuron says. There’s an innocent earnestness to his tone, with a touch of something  _ else _ that has Shiro craving more. “You need to be ready for me. Do you really think I’d just go and take you unprepared?”

“You… you know I’m ready… I just...” Two fingers are back now without warning, wiggling in the barest extent before scissoring him open and pulling back yet again. 

“Can’t be too careful though.” Kuron angles Shiro’s face to the side, propping his chin on his shoulder for a better view as he continues to probe at Shiro’s ass. Three fingers now, but he drops back down to one without so much as a warning, slowly fucking it in and out of Shiro’s hole as he watches. It just glances up against that spot inside Shiro and he fights back a fresh moan, walls contracting as his body tries to put out yet more slick.

“I don’t care!” he snaps, flinging his hand around to trap Kuron’s where it’s teasing his ass. “I don’t care if you’re gentle! I need you inside me  _ now _ Kuron! Need you fucking me now! Not… not playing with me like—”

His head hits the mattress and it takes a second for him to register that he’s been flipped, thrown onto his back with Kuron hovering over top of him.

“So… so you want it rough?” He can just barely make out Kuron’s face in the light of his prosthetic, as close as it is, barely see the highlights of his lips in the glow, but there’s no mistaking the soft uncertainty in that voice. The restraint, the need for permission that holds back the touch between his legs from becoming what he really needs. There’s a dark glimmer there, the edge his body’s craving but the eyes staring deep into his own are as familiar as the night sky.

Shiro rocks his hips, angling himself up and open until his legs are wide, presenting his waiting hole to Kuron.

“Go on. Fuck me like you want to.”

There’s a moment’s hesitation, a look, and then it’s gone.

Kuron’s fingers disappear from his ass in seconds, swinging up into the meat of his hips and hiking them up onto his lap. Shiro’s cock drools against his belly, breathing uneven as he watches Kuron fumble with the drawstring of his pants. He reaches up to help him, only to have his hands slapped away, Kuron pressing them back into the mattress above his head. They lock eyes, and when Kuron’s grip falls away Shiro stays as he is, watching as he undoes the final knot. He can feel his heartbeat creeping higher, blood pounding in his ears as he waits in anticipation as Kuron slides a hand into his pants. Torturously…. Torturously slow, he pulls it out. 

_ It. It  _ is  _ definitely _ what Shiro needs right now. 

The first time he’d seen it he’d been shocked, too unable to process more other than the fact that there was a copy of him with a dick the size of a fully hung Alpha’s hanging between his legs. Now though… now he’s fully focused, looking over every sweep and curve of it with nothing less than anticipation for what it will bring. 

It’s fat and thick, a piledriver of a cock, but then that’s ignoring the sheer perfection of it. The perfect ratio, how it tapers down towards the unformed knot, how it swells up towards the middle only to curve back in to the perfect uncut head, the opener for the entire event. A fat pearl of pre is leaking from it already, steadily rising to attention in Kuron’s hand as he brings it to hand between Shiro’s legs, letting him take it in in fully. 

“Good enough for you?” he asks with just the edge of a smirk. Kuron shifts forwards a bit, letting it dip down and skim against the underside of Shiro’s own cock. It’s skin on skin and  _ fuck… _ Shiro’s dick lets out a little spurt of pre of it’s own at the feeling of it. Fuck… it’s like the size of his and a half, on the edge of too big but that only makes him want to take it more, see how far his body will go to take it. 

“Fuck yes,” he groans, rocking up against it yet again. He’s rewarded with a sweet sound from Kuron and the weight of his twin pushing him down into the mattress, grinding into him. “Stop stalling and put that in me. Couldn’t stop thinking about it as I was jacking off… just the size of it… the feeling in me… how well you’ll fill me out…”

“You… you thought about it?”

“Thought?” he groans, bucking against Kuron’s dick. “I had to  _ keep _ myself from thinking about it. For-” he bites his lip, the guilty image of Kuron’s shirt rucking up, “-for days now.”

Kuron’s pupils blow wide and Shiro finds himself being shoved deeper into the sheets, his knees being thrust up around his ears as Kuron swings his ass skyward, leaving his hole open and defenseless. He can see the barest edges of it, the shimmer of slick against his skin, the flickering of light across it as his breathing slows to short choppy breaths, waiting for what’s to come. Kuron grinds down against the cleft of his ass, fucking the underside of his cock against Shiro’s hole and he bites back a whine, insides coiling at the feeling of it. 

He’s so close… so so close… but Kuron’s not giving it to him. It’s right there… why won’t he… Why’s he taking his sweet time when he could—

Kuron changes his angle, and the head pops in. 

Shiro’s mouth falls open, body freezing for a second at the surprise of it all. Everything’s still, nothing but the sound of their breathing fills the room, everything else fading out except the feeling at his ass. Of it finally being opened, filled with what’s supposed to be in it, muscles relaxing like they  _ know _ what’s about to come. Kuron holds him there, pulling Shiro’s hips back just enough that he can really  _ feel _ where it presses up against his insides just beyond his pucker, feel the hot velvet feeling of it against his walls. And then Kuron’s guiding his body again, pushing his hips forwards, and slowly sinks his way in. 

_ Fuck… _ Shiro hasn’t been dicked like this in years. Hell, he hasn’t had dick enter him like this in years, slow and steady from above outside of his control. Each inch makes it’s way in painfully slow, making him feel every scrape and curve of it against his walls as it parts them. It gets hotter the further it slips into him, as if the fever of his body is infecting it, heating it until it’s hotter than his own loins. 

“Fuck. Shiro…” Kuron stops halfway, nails digging into Shiro’s skin as he holds himself there. “You feel so good. So tight. It’s like you’re sucking me in right now. Look.” 

Shiro’s knees are shoved closer to his shoulders and he lets out a low noise as Kuron pulls back, letting him see where they’re connected in vivid detail. Kuron’s shaft is glistening with his slick, hard and throbbing against Shiro’s walls and entrance. It’s massive… bigger than Shiro’d though, but his ass takes it like it’s nothing, hole wrapped around it. Kuron pulls back and Shiro lets out a noise. His hole tenses around Kuron’s cock, tugging at it even as an inch slides back out of him, sucking hungrily at it for all it’s worth. 

“It’s like you’re made for me Shiro…” Kuron breathes, pushing back in back to halfway. His eyes don’t leave his own cock for a second, not even as he pulls back out a second time at Shiro’s protest. “-and not the other way around. Look how much you want me. You can’t take it when I pull out.”

Shiro bites his lip, trying in vain to buck back onto that cock, but he’s held back by strong hands. He’s at Kuron’s mercy, waiting for him to finally fill him like he’s supposed to. And in a way, he does. For every pull backwards, Kuron sinks in a little further, working himself in deeper and deeper with every torturous thrust, opening up the parts of Shiro his fingers never reached. 

He’s getting close. He can feel Kuron’s cock slowly tapering down now, sliding easier into his hole with each new attempt. He just has to ride it out, let Kuron work himself in at a speed he’s comfortable at. The clone’s palms are sweating now against his skin, fingers fumbling as he works himself deeper and deeper still. He’s rambling now, a string of curses and noises as he gets into the true tightness that is Shiro’s hole, grasping hungrily at his tip. Each time now he’s pulling out a little less and sliding in a bit more, shorter waits between each push. Shiro feels the slight swell of a half formed knot against his cheeks now and arches his neck back, ready for what’s to come. It’ll just be a little bit longer, a little more working him open and then Kuron will be inside, ready to—

Kuron bucks forwards all of a sudden, and with a surge the final few inches and knot ram into Shiro’s ass. 

The air’s knocked out of Shiro’s lungs as Kuron bottoms out, he can see stars behind his eyelids as all empty space inside him is filled in an instant. Everything goes white for a second, body ready to float away if not for the anchor of a dick holding him back down on Earth, filling him like he’s never been filled before. For a second he thinks he’s come already, spilled himself like a virgin on their first toy, but one shakey-handed reach for his dick is enough to tell him he’s still rock hard, just like Kuron inside him. 

He’s bent nearly in half, barely registering it until lips are kissing over his neck and cheeks as Kuron rambles to him in a small voice. “Shit. Shiro I’m sorry! I couldn’t help myself… I was trying to go slow, and then-”

Shiro cuts him off with a kiss, swallowing down a groan on Kuron’s tongue as the movement makes Kuron’s cock bump against his insides. “S’okay,” he mutters. “Feels good. I haven’t felt like this in a long time.”

Kuron kisses him again, softer now, a hand trailing up into Shiro’s hair as the other adjusts how their hips slot together. “Good. Cause I want to be good for you. Want to be so good you forget all about your other toys. I’ll be all you ever need.”

“Please…” he groans, “do it. Ruin me. I want it. Want you to fuck me how you want, let you use me.”

Kuron’s bites his lip, eyes wide and shy for a second before that dark glimmer of confidence is back. “Is that so? You want to be used like a fuck toy by your own toy?” He pulls back and lets out an experimental thrust, sliding long and deep through Shiro’s insides. 

“Fuck!” he hisses, Kuron’s dick glancing up against that spot. He’s picking up his pace now, slowing working himself into a rhythm, but it's only enough to stoke the flames in Shiro’s stomach, not sate them. Kuron arches one eyebrow and pulls out more, leaving Shiro chasing the retreating shape of his cock as much as he can in Kuron’s hold. 

“You really want me to use you how I’d like? Fuck you for my own pleasure?” It’s like there’s an extra hit of dark chocolate in that voice, the bite of something dangerous just under the surface and it has Shiro’s insides reacting to it. Like an Alpha with restraint, just waiting for their Omega to give them an inch before taking a mile. It’s another side of him and Shiro’s ready for it, ready to take every last facet of Kuron with open legs. 

Kuron’s thrusting shallowly into Shiro’s hole now, thumbing the underside of Shiro’s dick as he teases him. As maddening as it is, Shiro’s never been one for predictable partners, and he’s not one to always play by the books either.

“Depends,” he says, hands snaking up wrap behind his knees and pull them further apart, leaving himself even more open and on display for Kuron. He clamps down around Kuron’s cock, earning a little grunt in return. He grins, hips grinding against Kuron’s. “If you’re not up for it I can always look elsewhere. Pretty sure I know some Alphas on board more than willing to do the job.”

Kuron lets out the snarl of an Alpha possessed and Shiro swears he feels the head of the cock inside him grow. It’s all the warning he has before Kuron is surging forwards, their lips colliding as he sinks balls deep back inside. “No…” he growls, “no. I’ll look after you. Make you come so hard you’re seeing stars.” It’s like a switch has gone off somewhere in Kuron, the last fibres of restraint breaking as he kisses into Shiro’s mouth. There’s still that same earnest undercurrent, that feeling of being precious goods but right now it’s taking a backseat to Kuron’s need to stake his claim in Shiro, teeth nipping and biting along his bottom lip as he pounds into him. The force of his thrusts make Shiro’s body jump against the mattress, their teeth almost clicking together a half dozen times before Kuron finally relents enough to let Shiro breathe. When he does it’s only to rain his attentions elsewhere on Shiro’s body, mouth and teeth now skirting along Shiro’s neck and jaw, sending fresh spikes of adrenaline through him. His tongue laps over the salt of Shiro’s skin, mouth sucking marks of ownership along his neck and Shiro bends to it, his inner Omega squirming in delight at the feeling.

Filthy noises fill the air as Kuron’s cock fucks in and out of him, the wet sounds of slick and slapping skin punching through the pounding of Shiro’s heartbeat in his ears. Kuron’s dick is huge, filling him end to end and then some. Each thrust Shiro feels like he’s getting deeper, working himself further into Shiro’s guts until he fits perfectly inside him. Every scrape of his cock against his walls feels better than the last, every push of the knot against his hole gets him closer and closer to the edge. It’s like the more the fuck the better it gets. He’s lost control completely, fully surrendered to Kuron’s whims but every last move is something he didn’t know he needed. The rutting of his own cock against Kuron’s abs, the hickies across his neck, the way Kuron’s thumb slides up his shirt to expose his chest, nails catching the skin just right… it’s all so much and yet just enough. Just what he needs and more. There’s no need to think, no need to readjust or figure out how to better fuck. It’s all he can do to cling onto Kuron’s shoulders for the ride and let him fuck him, rut into him for all he’s worth. 

Kuron lets out a grunt and Shiro finds himself shoved deeper into the mattress, hips pulled high until Kuron’s dropping down on him, fucking him with choppy, deep thrusts. He can feel Kuron’s knot catching with each push now, growing bigger each time it pops in and out of his hole, entrance straining to let it out each time and then straining once again as it works to let it inside where he so desperately needs it. 

He’s babbling now, words he’s not quite sure of, other than that they’re about how close he is, how much he needs Kuron’s knot and needs to come. His insides are reaching their limit, fluttering and twitching in time with Kuron’s thrusts, begging, pleading him for the knot that would bring release. He wants to come,  _ needs _ to come, and all that’s missing is an Alpha’s knot, sealed inside him and pumping him full. In the peak of heat-lust Shiro has a second of hesitance, a thought that makes his words slow and fingers slacken where they grip Kuron’s neck. 

Only for his double to take the moment,  _ that _ moment, to seal his knot inside and come. 

Kuron thrusts in for a final time with a growl, absurdly large knot barely working it’s way inside Shiro as he tugs them together for another kiss. Shiro can taste last night’s dinner, heat, and something else, something he can only describe as  _ Kuron _ , and then he’s coming, orgasm finally claiming him as the knot inflates inside him and finally, truly fills him outright.

His release splatters over both of them, just as his insides lock down on Kuron’s knot to milk it and then, only then does he realize they’re both coming. 

Liquid warmth is pooling inside him, filling out the spaces left untouched by Kuron’s cock as his clone’s noises are swallowed down on his tongue. Come. Kuron’s coming inside him, something he hadn’t thought possible and yet… of course he was. Of course he would satisfy every need of Shiro’s, right up to the need to feel sloppy and used, to melt bonelessly onto cock as it filled him and feel that release drip out of him when the knot finally went down. 

More noises are coming from where their lips are sealed together now, softer, more hesitant, and Shiro pulls back with a groan, still riding out the tail end of his climax. 

Kuron’s looking at him through semi glazed eyes, lips and cheeks flushed pink with exertion even as his hips continue to jerk against Shiro’s own, fucking more release into him. He’s smiling, but even so Shiro can’t help but run a finger across his face and rub at the single crease between his brows. His voice is raspy, but soft. “This what you needed?” he gasps, as if Shiro’s orgasm wasn’t enough validation for him. Back to his shyer side, and it’s all Shiro can do but lean up and kiss him once more for good measure, letting his tongue roam lazily about in Kuron’s mouth.

“Fuck yes…” he moans when they finally part. His whole body is singing at the afterglow of that fuck, loose and relaxed as if he’d just emerged from a long hot bath. “Perfect. Just… perfect.”

Kuron makes as though he’s going to pull out, but Shiro’s having none of that. His ankles knot around the other’s waist, arms tugging him down until they’re both lying down, Kuron on top of him, cock still very much alive and well inside continuing to paint his insides white. 

“Don’t you dare,” he warns, but there’s no edge there beyond the way his thighs refuse to let Kuron move in their grip. “After’s just as important. You’re not getting off until I get to milk a knot properly.”

Kuron nods and settles closer against Shiro, face buried in his neck. Pressed together like this Shiro’s almost ready for sleep, the warm embrace of an Alpha and the feeling of a heat well-sated more effective than any pill. His hand finds it’s way to Kuron’s nape, tangling in the short crop of his hair as he strokes it absentmindedly. His body’s getting heavy, warmed inside and out. It all feels right, like it’s supposed to. 

“Shiro…”

Kuron’s voice is small, barely a whisper, but it snaps him back to the present. He adjusts himself, Kuron’s knot now sitting more snuggly in his ass. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“You feeling better?”

“Mmm. Much.” His thumb strokes against the back of Kuron’s head. “You?”

“That… that wasn’t too much, was it? I got a little-”

“You got just where you needed to be, don’t worry.”

“And this all isn’t your heat talking?”

“No,” he cuts, gently coaxing Kuron’s face out of hiding. “It might have helped… speed some things up, but I think even without it… we’d probably have gotten here somehow.” He kisses Kuron, right against the corner of his eye where he can reach. “I like you, and heat or not that’s not going to stop.”

Kuron nods slowly, leaning back in to press a kiss of his own to Shiro’s jaw. “M’glad,” he says from back within the safe confines of Shiro’s neck. “I like you too.”

Shiro hums, massaging Kuron’s back until he feels the other’s body slowly grow slack and breathing go even. He’s not sure how long it takes, but for however long it does Kuron’s knot still stays well and truly deep inside him. Sleep starts to take him too, blissed and fucked out as he is. Tomorrow… as soon as they wake up he’s going to go to Keith and get everything started. Introducing Kuron to the paladins, helping him open up more and more. Maybe… maybe with time he’d even be able to teach him how to fly, how to weave between meteors and chart his way through the stars. Maybe he’d find something else he loved, something entirely new and different from anything Shiro’s ever considered himself, and he knows he’ll do everything to help Kuron master it as far as he’ll go.

Kuron lets out a little snort and stirs, knot tugging at Shiro’s ass. 

_ Right.  _ That could all come after this. For now all they had to worry about was riding out the rest of Shiro’s heat, something he was looking forward to more than he had in years. Seveal more hours, or three more days of being holed up in bed with Kuron depending on how well this round had sated him, letting him fuck him any way they wanted… 

Shiro’s hole clenches around Kuron’s cock.  _ Yeah, he was ready for that _ , as much as he hadn’t been an hour ago. Same as he’d felt about sharing Kuron over all these days, nerves ebbing away into a soft, beating pulse of excitement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still somewhat on the fence as to what I had originally planned for the final chapter/epilogue. If you guys think I should go with the original plan let me know, otherwise I think I'm going to try for where I feel the story's headed now (still with a few juicy hints of the original, just trimmed/tamed)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof... first off an apology for this final chapter taking so long! I hit a major block after the last one, was really second guessing my outline and in the end wound up taking a bit of a break to step back and focus on other things until my brain rebooted enough to have the juices flowing on this. 
> 
> But in happier news, we did it! Hope you enjoyed the ride and hope you enjoy this last little bit!

Something wasn’t sitting right with Keith. 

Shiro hadn’t shown up to his mom’s room like he’d asked. He’d waited there, holed up for a good hour with her talking about her earlier days in the Blades and playing rounds of a game he could only call confusing space-poker. That hour’d been okay. Krolia had been there, and if Shiro had been taking his time getting ready, well… that would explain that.

Except he still hadn’t come an hour after that. He hadn’t even made an appearance by the time Pidge and Romelle came and dragged him out of the bathroom where he’d been hiding from the terrible cheesy rom com night Lance had planned. 

_ That… _ maybe  _ that  _ made sense. 

Shiro  _ had  _ been smelling pretty close to heat. Pair that with the evening’s activity and maybe the time it was taking for Shiro to feel ready to make an appearance wasn’t entirely unusual. Heats were… _ something _ . And all Omegas were different. All he had to do was be patient and wait for Shiro to poke his head around the corner, ears pink and smelling like that twinge of omega sweetness. Shiro did that, he always did… flitting in and out as his needs for sex and companionship ping-ponged back and forth. So Keith tries to resign himself to wait for the ball to travel back into this side of the court

But as the movie drew on and the cliched misunderstandings and slapstick antics of the best friends kept coming, he was getting outright worried. Heat flares didn’t usually last this long, right? He’d never timed any of Shiro’s before, but he swore they’d never lasted more than a few hours. Even if he wasn’t feeling up to moving after it… surely…  _ surely  _ he would have let him know,  _ right? _

He spent the better part of the third act chewing his nails trying to convince himself everything was alright. Shiro was fine._ He_ _had to be_. He wasn’t fading away, at least, he’d promised he wasn’t. Shiro was just… going through something right now. Something he couldn’t bring himself to tell Keith. That was… that was okay. It was _totally normal_ for best friends to avoid talking about their problems, there was _nothing_ suspicious or unsettling about it at all. 

Keith lets out a hiss as he bites down to the quick of his nail. He can taste the faint tang of blood on his tongue.

_ Of course there was reason to worry _ . And he was going to get down to the bottom of whatever it was. 

As soon as the movie ended and Romelle got off his legs.

* * *

Or… or maybe… maybe he should be addressing this later.

Keith stands with one ear pressed against Shiro’s door, faint snatches of erratic breathing and muffled moans coming from the other side. If he focuses hard enough, he swears he can almost hear the wet sounds of skin on silicon and the squeak of bedsprings. 

Keith tries to shut the noises out, even as Shiro squeaks out a moan that has his spine shooting to poker straight in shock.

He wasn’t…. He wasn’t going to just walk in on Shiro in the middle of a heat flare. That… that was just asking for trouble and opening the door to a whole mess of regrets they could both find themselves in in the morning. He’d already walked in on Shiro pleasuring himself once, he wasn’t about to just do it again and relive the entire cherry vibrator incident. One mortifying trip to the garrison medbay had been enough. He wasn’t sure if either of them wanted a second.

He stalls, frozen between turning back and turning away as a thought hits him. 

What if Shiro was  _ stuck _ fucking?

He’d… he’d mentioned he’d bought  _ something _ adult earlier. Something that he’d both barely been able to talk about, but had been forcing himself to. What were the chances it was something he couldn’t control?

Keith rapidly flicks through the list of potential alien sex toys gone wrong. There were the one’s he’d already asked Shiro about, the parasitic eggs and quantum glory-hole rings, regular old vibrators and plugs he could have gotten stuck up inside himself in a case of history repeating itself yet again. But Shiro’d insisted it hadn’t been any of that. Keith screws up his face, trying to think harder. Shiro’d… Shiro’d used  _ he _ once or twice talking about it. Almost like it had been semi sentient, or at least, somewhat alive-like. 

For a second he thinks of that terrifying tentacle tree-thing he’d found in Kolivan’s room that one time, but steels himself.  _ No…  _ there was no way Shiro’d be willing to buy something that large and obvious and bring it back onto the ship. But… he could have gotten something small. He… he wouldn’t chalk Shiro up to be the type, but then again, how  _ did  _ you recognize the kind of person who’d keep a companion slime?

Hot blush erupts over Keith’s cheeks as he remembers the time Regris let him play with his, the way it squeezed his knot and toyed with his ass all at once. It… it wouldn’t be  _ that _ weird for an Omega to like that kind of feeling, would it? And considering their love of bodily fluids…

He spins away from Shiro’s door, teeth sinking into his palm as he tries not to picture Shiro like that… fucked again and again by a football sized blob as it coaxes more come and slick out of him. 

_ No. He was definitely NOT picturing that. _

He’s way out of line. Whatever Shiro does behind closed doors, heat or not, is none of his business. He’ll just come back first thing tomorrow and wait Shiro out. He has to take a break to refuel and rehydrate, and nothing, not even a heat, would keep Shiro away from Hunk’s cinnamon raisin scones. 

Keith takes a step, and then another. He takes ten in total before he looks back over his shoulder at Shiro’s door, noises faded away to nothing now. 

It… it should be okay. 

He’ll have Kosmo poof in a bottle of water though. Just in case.

* * *

Maybe his nerves get the better of him. Maybe it’s the fact that he keeps waking up in the night, but in the end, Keith ends up waiting in front of Shiro’s door. 

It’s the best way to get rid of this feeling, he tells himself. Whenever Shiro comes out, because he  _ will, _ he’ll be right there waiting, awake or asleep, and no matter which there’s no way Shiro’ll be able to ignore that. Even if all that happens is that Shiro lets him know everything’s okay, that’ll be enough for him until they finally sit down and have this talk. 

It’s actually sort of cozy on the floor in front of Shiro’s door. He’s got a thick duvet and Kosmo at his back, it almost reminds him of his time on the space whale, except even nicer. Back then it’d been moss blankets and a small wolf. Here… here it was so warm and soft and comfortable, Kosmo’s doggy snores reverberating against his back...

Keith doses off without realizing it. One second he’s blinking at the dark shadow of Shiro’s bedroom door, the next he’s squinting out of sleep crusted eyes into artificial dawn. At first he forgets where he is, instead burying his face deeper into the fur of Kosmo’s neck. But then he remembers the reason he’s there, and hears the clipped chuff Kosmo lets out and forces himself to crack an eye fully. 

Shiro’s door is still closed, but Kosmo’s perked upright, staring down the hall at a figure that disappears around the corner. He catches the flash of grey sweats, maybe an arm, but the rest is gone within a moment of him looking.

“Wassat… Shiro?” he grunts at his wolf, Kosmo’s tail wagging against the blankets. His reply is nothing more than a yawn and a smacking of canine lips, but its enough. Kosmo wouldn’t just let anyone go near him while he’s sleeping. 

Shiro’s one of those few people. 

He drags himself off the floor and starts trailing the person, Kosmo at his heels. Whoever it is, they’re fast. There’s just the barest trace of an ankle down at the next corner as he rounds the first, and by the second turn he’s on the verge of jogging trying not to lose all sight or sound of them. He swears they’re onto him, the way they keep ducking and weaving through weird routes Keith’s never taken in his life. He’s pretty sure they’ve passed the same storage closet twice too, whoever it is cursing under their breath ahead of him as he ducks behind a doorframe. He doesn’t know why, but hiding feels like the right move now. There’s some mumbles that sound like counting, a man’s voice by the sounds of it, and then nothing. 

Keith peers back out at an empty hallway, Kosmo whining beside him. 

Scratch that.  _ Practically _ empty.

There’s a foot peeking out of a doorway just a half dozen meters in front of him. It’s just the toe, but there’s no mistaking that whoever it belongs to is propping a door open while they do something inside. Keith stalks down the hall, eyes fixed on the shoe in front of him. It’s black and grey, a garrison-issued sneaker, but the laces… they’re orange instead of white. 

There’s only one person he knows who’s swapped out the standard issue ones with a new set, the person who snapped their first set in the leg press machine. The same person who Keith’s been waiting for, who he’d sworn wouldn’t have just tip-toed around him, the same person’s who’s also his far-too secrative best friend. 

Keith slides against the doorframe with his arms folded in front of his chest, lips twisted into a pout. “ _ Shiro…”  _ he grunts at the man pulling protein bars from the kitchenette fridge, “we need to talk.”

Shiro curses, almost banging the top of his hoodie-covered head against the top shelf. His entire body’s stiff as a board, clothes reeking of heat, one hand frozen on a bottle of smart water. “ _ Keith… _ ” he says, voice straining to sound casual. “You want something too?”

“What I  _ want _ is to talk, just like you  _ said _ we would.” He slouches further against the door, effectively blocking any easy exit. “You blew me off last night. I get it. Your heat’s here, I don’t expect you to not have to deal with it, but what I  _ do _ expect is that you don’t go leaving me in the dark for hours without so much as a word. And I definitely don’t expect you to just ignore me after waiting outside your door all night!”

He’s past being annoyed, or frustrated now. He’s flat out pissed off. Shiro just blew him off and now he’s acting like nothing’s wrong, nervously shoving more snack bars into the pocket of his hoodie. 

“I… I’m sorry Keith,” he mumbles, bottle crunching in his fist. It’s the first sign of Shiro acknowledging anything close to wrongdoing. “A lot happened last night, some things that were pretty new to me too. If you want to talk about it, we can go back to my room, you can lead the way.”

Beside him Kosmo lets out a whine and tugs at his sleeve. Keith pushes his nose away.

“No,” he glowers, reaching out and snagging Shiro’s wrist. “No… you’re talking to me right now Shiro! I’ve been worried sick about you for the better part of three days now.  _ You owe this to me _ . I’ve been patient, I’ve tried to give you the time you need, and now… now time’s up. So dish!”

He whirls Shiro around to face him, ready to face down any puppy-dog-pout with the coldest, unfeeling glare he can summon. He’s not expecting the look of sad acceptance that’s on Shiro’s face as he turns round. 

He’s  _ definitely _ not expecting it to be framed by black hair and brows.

Keith stumbles back, and he must still be half asleep because it’s really only  _ then _ that he notices Shiro’s arms. 

Shiro’s  _ two _ arms. Shiro’s entirely normal, not at all robotic or glowing or hovering  _ human  _ arms. 

_ It’s not possible.  _ It shouldn’t be. But it is...

The Shiro standing in front of him isn’t  _ his Shiro _ . Or at least, not the one he knows now. It’s like he’s been thrown back five years in time, back to the garrison, back to the Shiro who’d run before dawn in a desert in nothing but a tank and shorts and come back freezing, sulking with his hood drawstring pulled tight around his face just like this as Keith and Adam teased him over terrible porridge. It’s the Shiro with the arm he hasn’t felt the touch of since the night before the Kerberos launch, squeezing his shoulder excitedly as he gushed about all the things he hoped to find. It’s a Shiro that sends him painfully back to the moment he’d realized this was the first person who believed in him since his dad, now twisted in a look of pity and guilt that makes his gut churn and pulse mount. 

It’s that version of Shiro, except the scar still remains. A slash dividing his face in two like a break in reality, spilling out and bridging these two Shiros in front of him. It’s all familiar but  _ off _ and his body doesn’t know what to do.

This Shiro takes a step forward, hand outstretched, and only then does Keith snap out of the shock. His hand darts to his side, dagger drawn and thrust into this copy’s face. The Shiro jerks back, bars spilling from his arm as he retreats against the counter, hand now raised in defense. 

The spell’s broken as soon as it came. There’s no going back to that Shiro. It’s all in the past. Shiro now is snow-capped, battleworn… the Shiro form before Kerberos is gone. The only reason he’d ever see  _ this _ , ever see the flesh and blood of the past in front of him is  _ her _ . 

One piece of history he won’t let repeat.

“Keith,  _ please _ …” the Shiro pleads, “I know this is scary-”

“Who are you?” he barks. “What are you doing here? Why do you look like Shiro? Why do you know who I am?!” Every question is punctuated with another flick of the knife, the duplicate shrinking further and further back. Beside him Kosmo lets out a growl turned whine.

“Keith…” the Shiro says, quiver in his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“No you’re  _ not _ ,” he growls, grip tightening on his blade as he twists it threateningly towards the other’s face. “And you’re not hurting Shiro either. I don’t know what you are or how you got here, but I’m putting a stop to whatever you or Haggar is planning right here and now.”

“I… I’m not planning anything! Who’s Haggar?” The Shiro’s eyes keep darting between Keith and his knife, down to Kosmo, then back to Keith. “I swear, I’m just here getting food! It’s for him! I’m just trying to look after him!”

Keith’s grip on the knife loosens as Kosmo lets out another yowling whine.  _ No… he couldn’t mean. But… _ His eyes sweep up and down this imposter. Shiro’s shoes, the sweats he’d picked up only weeks ago. The chances of him picking them up elsewhere, throwing together the same cobbled look…

His eyes narrow, fingers tightening around the hilt. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

“N-nothing! He’s in his room sleeping. I-If we go there you’ll see-” 

Keith flicks the blade again, silencing him as it catches the light. Not-Shiro licks his lips.

“Keith… I know you don’t trust me… Which is fair considering… well… But you have to believe me when I say I wouldn’t hurt him! I never would! And he knows that, just like he knows you! Just like how he knew how you’d react to me and-”

Dark-haired Shiro jerks back as Keith stabs his blade within an inch of his throat. The Shiro flinches back, eyes wide, mouth gaping open and closed as he looks from Kosmo to Keith. He looks like a lost child, overwhelmed and on the verge of holding back tears, and Keith hates how his stomach twists at it. This… this has to be a clone, just like the one he fought  _ that time _ . It shouldn’t be tugging on his heartstrings like this. It shouldn’t be holding onto this mask of innocence for so long if it’s here under Haggar’s control.

Kosmo is barking now, short desperate clips as he tries to get between the two of them and Keith has to tug him back by the scruff, wolf wheezing and whining at him as he holds the blade steady. No matter how much he looked it, how much he fooled Kosmo, this wasn’t Shiro. 

“ _ Please _ ,” the Shiro croaks, Adam’s apple bobbing against the silver of Keith’s knife. “Just… take us there. He won’t believe unless… unless  _ he’s _ the one explaining.”

“What makes you think I’m going to-” Keith starts, only to realize it’s not directed at  _ him _ . 

His body vibrates with energy, blue light wrapping around the edges of his vision. 

Before he knows it he’s gone, teleported away by his own wolf. 

They emerge in darkness, Keith spinning around, knife poised to strike. No sign of the fake Shiro, not even a-

“Kosmo,  _ what the hell?! _ ” Keith spins to face his wolf, already several paces away from him with his ears tucked low against his head. “Did you just  _ listen _ to that guy?! I had him! There was no reason to trust him, and you just go and… great… just  _ great! _ ”

Keith stares at the afterimage of where his wolf used to be, the sparks from the flash dying out in front of him. 

“What the  _ HELL?? _ ” he shouts, trying to get his bearings now. It’s nearly pitch black in here, the sudden flash of Kosmo’s exit doing nothing to help his night vision. He takes a few strides forwards, only to trip over something that clatters loudly across the floor and curse. Something squishy gushes under his sole as he spins around blind, desperately looking for something,  _ anything _ that could be poised to strike.

“Kuron?”

Keith freezes. There’s a rustling to his right and then a flood of light so bright he’s almost blinded, lamplight spilling over him and a trampled bowl of food goo. He doesn’t need it, doesn’t need that painful glow to know who’s voice it is, just like he doesn’t need to see beyond the halo of the bulb to know the all-too familiar face behind it, twisted in confusion.

“... Keith?”

Shirtless and wrapped in several layers of sheets and blankets is Shiro.  _ Normal Shiro _ . There’s the floating arm slowly booting up with it’s pale blue glow, there’s his all-white hair sticking up at seven different angles and flecks of eye crusties decorating his lashes. It’s… it’s  _ him,  _ and  _ yet _ -

Shiro’s glancing nervously around the room, mouth worried into a thin line as he tries to wrap a sheet around himself. “Wh-what are you doing here? I don’t… I thought the door was locked… I…” he bites his lip, eyes locked onto Keith’s knife. “Why… why do you have  _ that _ ?”

Keith jams it behind his back, wrestling with his tongue that’s fighting to be swallowed. Shiro’s thickly coated in the smell of heat, like he should be expecting him to be. That wasn’t good. He could be quick to startle, already on edge from having someone show up in his safe space unannounced. He can’t… he _really shouldn’t_ make him feel unsafe in his own nest, but _that._ _That double._ He can’t have imagined it. It’s real, which means-

Shiro clambers off the bed uneasily, eyes swinging from the bathroom, to the closet, to-

Keith darts over and yanks the handle. 

A squeak lets out behind him as he opens it to nothing but clothes. Safe. He turns around. 

Shiro’s staring at him, eyes wide as he skirts forward on shaky legs. “Keith…” he tries to soothe, but there’s no mistaking the edge of anxiety in his equally shaky laugh. “Keith… what are you doing? There’s nothing there… I-” he sighs, tugging the sheets higher around him. “I  _ know  _ I fucked up last night. I was supposed to come see you and my heat caught me completely off guard, but if you’re here now…” his eyes dart over to the bathroom, then back to Keith. “... How about you put down the knife and we’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.”

Something’s wrong. Something’s off with Shiro,  _ way too off _ in a way he  _ knows _ isn’t a heat talking. He’s too nervous, and it has the hairs on the back of Keith’s neck standing on end. It has his muscles coiling, body ready to strike, legs tensing as he catches the twitch of Shiro’s arm. Something was wrong… Shiro knew something… something  _ he  _ didn’t know...

He’s ready to make a rush for the bathroom door, check if there’s something in there. He’s ready to barricade the door, or maybe drag them both out there to someplace safe and unexpected. Something feels  _ not right _ and he’s still on edge from Kosmo dropping him here all of sudden. Almost as if his wolf knew something he didn’t. As if-

A flash fills the room, and any though Keith has is gone, replaced with what’s just appeared smack between him and Shiro

Kosmo. With clone in tow.

The double’s hand is knotted tight in Kosmo’s scruff, other fist equally as tight around a bottle of juice. His hood is gone, revealing an entire head of black hair that stands in sharp contrast to the pure white of Shiro’s, sitting on top of an equally shocked face. For a second it’s like staring in a broken mirror, both Shiros looking at him with the same wide eyes and point blank stare. Their faces… they’re identical… lines…  _ everything _ . It’s unsettling… two living, breathing Shiros sharing the same space, except one of them isn’t him. 

It’s an imposter.

_ “You _ .” He growls, brandishing his knife at the clone. “I don’t know what you did to Kosmo, but you don’t get to slip in here that easily.”

“Keith…” Shiro gulps, and the double’s hand tightens on Kosmo so hard he lets out a yelp. “Keith _ don’t!  _ He’s not-”

“Not what? Not a copy of you?” His fingers flex, body poised to strike. No one hurt his wolf. “Shiro look at him,  _ he’s one of Haggar’s!  _ We have to catch him and figure out how he got here, we have to-”

“No, we don’t!” Shiro darts forward, metal arm swinging  _ in front _ of the clone.  _ Protecting him. _

“We don’t?” he sputters, still glaring daggers at the invader. “Shiro,  _ what the fuck?! _ Get out of the way! He’s a clon-”

“_He’s not a clone!_” Shiro barks, fists clenched, light of his arm flashing dangerously. “And he’s not Haggar’s. He’s… _he’s mine!_ _I made him!” _

“He’s  _ WHAT?” _ Keith spins the knife on Shiro.  _ No… that wasn’t possible.  _ “You’re lying… he’s done something to your head… he’s…” he bites his lip, tone dying. “Shiro… it’s  _ me… _ don’t tell me... _ ” _

“Keith…” Shiro walks forwards, all sad brows and sunken eyes. He backs away, knife still held in front of him. “I promise you… she’s not in my head. No one’s controlling me, just like no one’s controlling him. He’s not dangerous,” he whispers, prosthetic fingers reaching out to touch the tip of Keith’s blade. “I… trust me, I was worried about that at first. But he’s here now because of me… because I got him and-” Shiro gulps, eyes closing as he gently eases Keith’s blade down “- he’s been what I’ve been trying to tell you about. What I’ve been struggling to tell you about.”

Shiro’s palms fall to his sides, eyes still closed, as if in prayer. Keith could grab him, he could ram him through with his blade if he wanted to right now, and he knows Shiro wouldn’t fight him. He’s surrendering, giving himself over to his mercy, whatever that might be. 

All for a clone he swears is his.

“I… I don’t understand,” Keith croaks. His voice is splitting, just like the ribbons of thought in his brain, fraying into a thousand tiny strands falling further and further from order. “You… how are you so calm about this? How does  _ any _ of this make sense? I don’t...” 

Warm arms embrace him, his face pulled against a strong shoulder. 

“I know… I know this is hard, especially for you. I… this is why I wanted to do this right… the right way, where this wouldn’t happen.” Shiro sucks in a breath, arms tightening around him. “I didn’t want it to happen this way. It was never supposed to happen like this. I… I’m so sorry Keith. And Kuron...” he shifts against Keith, “you deserved a better introduction.”

There’s the sound of sniffing and scuffing rubber behind them as…  _ Kuron? _ shuffles about. “S’okay. I have a hand in this too. I didn’t think he’d be out there this early.”

“Still…” Shiro pulls back from him, brows knitted together, “if I’d just done this sooner, I wouldn’t have put either of you through this. I...” he clears his throat, stepping between them both. “This is all my fault, so… Keith, meet Kuron. Kuron… this is Keith.”

The dark-haired clone gives Keith a shy little wave, sidestepping behind Kosmo who’s still hovering around his heels. Shiro’s looking between the two of them like a dog parent on their first outing to the park, desperately trying to radiate calm while throwing out waves of anxiety all the same. There’s no look between them, anything that signals they’re both on the same page ready and waiting for the right time to spring.

“I’ve had him for over a week, but… well… you can kind of see why I kept holding back on introducing him to everyone. Not that that was good. It wasn’t. I wasn’t,” babbles Shiro. “He’s mainly just been in my room the whole time and that’s not fair to him as much as it isn’t fair to you and everyone else and I know this doesn’t look good but-”

“Kuron?” Keith cuts Shiro off, focus more on the dark-haired man in front of him. He really… he  _ really _ looks like Shiro, so much so he can’t quite get past that fact. A near perfect copy, minus the hair color, but ignoring that? Insanely good, right down to the mole hiding on his earlobe and the smile lines by his eyes. How in the hell this is all happening supposedly  _ without _ Haggar’s meddling is beyond him, but right now, he’s willing to trust listen for the time being. 

“It’s… really Kuron?” He repeats slowly, watching as the clone fidgets in place. “That’s your name?” 

Kuron nods, gaze averted as he scratches behind Kosmo’s ears. 

“It… can’t say I’ve ever heard that before.”

“Well…” Kuron says, still focused on petting Kosmo. “It’s my name, and what I am too. A kuron. That’s why I look like him.” 

“A what?” Keith’s gaze swings up to Shiro.

“It’s uh… it’s a  _ story _ ,” Shiro mumbles. 

“But I don’t have any of his memories!” Kuron adds quickly, staring earnestly at Keith, and  _ fuck _ … That face takes him back, right to when Shiro would beg Iverson to grant him permission to take him someplace for the holidays. “I promise… I never did! There’s no way I could ever pretend to be him. I can’t! And I’m not going to attack you or be corrupted or…” he stalls, suddenly aware of himself. He rubs a palm behind his neck, lip worried between his teeth. “Shiro told me what happened the last time… the last time you found someone else that looked like him… I promise you, I’m not a clone like that. I… I’m really not meant for that kind of thing.”

Beside him, Kosmo lets out a small awoo and licks his palm. 

“And, uhm… I’m sorry… I’ve already met your wolf,” Kuron adds sheepishly. “We’ve… we’ve spent a lot of time together, I hope that’s okay.”

“I kind of… let it happen,” Shiro says, now watching as Kosmo worms his head back under Kuron’s fingers for more pets. “They seem to get along and, well… they both seem to enjoy the company.”

Keith nods slowly, still trying to process it all. “Makes sense…” he tries, eyes flicking up and down Kuron’s body again and again. So  _ this  _ was where Kosmo had been whenever he’d been in meetings or away from his side. He couldn’t say he was expecting it, but there’s a strange sense of…  _ relief? Comfort? _ Knowing Kosmo hasn’t been as lonely as he thought. He’d been with Kuron… and if Kosmo had been willing to be around him like that, well… that meant he couldn’t be  _ that much _ of a threat. 

But still… a clone? A…  _ kuron _ ? Why in the hell Shiro’d  _ ever  _ keep one, let alone want one… it makes Keith’s head throb and pulse stutter uncomfortably.

“Actually…” he huffs, arms crossing, “This doesn’t make sense. Shiro… I don’t understand,” he frowns. “You just up and found a clone of yourself somewhere and you decided the best thing to do was to keep him? Let alone hide that fact from everyone? Shiro… you’re supposed to be level headed, you’re- you’re leading all of us right now! In what universe did you think it was a good idea to smuggle him on board and keep him in your room like- like a…  _ I don’t know! _ ”

Kuron and Shiro both wince, the latter moving a touch closer to Kuron. 

“Well,  _ actually _ …” Shiro says in a small voice. “He didn’t look like this when I got him. I didn’t even really know  _ what _ he was when I did.”

“You  _ what? _ ” Keith stares at both of them. Kuron sighs and shakes his head, looking down like a child accepting of their fate. Shiro on the other hand… Shiro flat out cringes, eyes suddenly wandering up to the ceiling and a particularly interesting piece of dust, ears steadily turning raspberry.

It’s enough of a reaction to make him see red too.

“You  _ what?! _ ” Keith repeats, staring him down harder now. It’s beyond stupid. It’s reckless and outright dangerous, and Shiro was acting  _ like this? _ “ _ How do you not KNOW WHAT you’re taking home when you’re the one that picked him up in the first place?  _ How in the  _ hell _ could you bring someone suspicious onto the Atlas without doing your due diligence?! You  _ KNOW _ what we’re up against right now, what we’ve been through! Clearly enough to tell him about it!” he yells, gesturing wildly at Kuron. “How did you not consider the risk? How could you just trust so blindly, even if  _ somehow _ it just all worked out?”

“Well… because…” Shiro swallows, colour leaching into his face now. “Because I got him at the space mall.”

“You… you picked up your double at the  _ mall? _ ” Keith shakes his head. This is beyond maddening. “Shiro…  _ I  _ was with you there! You think I wouldn’t have noticed you and another you hanging out together? Or even just you and some… chameleon creature? If that’s what you are?”

“Not… exactly,” says Kuron quietly.

“Hell, the only time I wasn’t with you was when you snuck off, apparently to buy sex toys or  _ something _ , and-”

Shiro’s cheeks flush bright red, frozen stiff locked in the  _ guiltiest _ stare Keith’s ever seen. Behind him, Kuron clears his throat noisily, staring pointedly at a space some three feet beyond Shiro’s back.

No…

“You’re… you have  _ got _ to be kidding me.” He’s gawking at both of them, but he  _ can’t stop _ . It’s impossible… but this is space… but it’s still not… “There’s no way…” he stammers. “ ** _He’s_ ** _ the sex toy you were talking about?!” _

Kuron has a guilty face to rival Kosmo’s right now, and Shiro’s nearly the color of a boiled lobster. 

“ _ Yep, _ ” he squeaks. “ _ Yep… he’s… that. _ ”

“But he’s…” Keith’s about to say  _ normal _ , or  _ not studded in penises _ or  _ ribbed for pleasure _ or ANYTHING along those lines, but he catches himself. That’s… he  _ knows _ there’s weird sex toys out there,  _ for fucks sakes he’s used some _ , but  _ this? _

Not that he could never think of Shiro as anything but vanilla, but…  _ really? _

Suddenly Shiro’s hesitance and embarrassment is making a whole lot more sense. Which is saying something, considering  _ nothing _ makes any sense right now. 

“So…” Keith says, suddenly finding it twice as hard to breathe. “You just… found a replica of yourself at a sex shop and bought it. Totally normal. Totally… not weird… or questionable, someone selling a knockoff of one of the paladins of Voltron that just so happens to look and talk and act a  _ heck of a lot _ like a real person…”

“Not… exactly,” Shiro moans. “He… he didn’t look like this when I got him. He wasn’t… activated then. He just looked like a little bullet toy.”

“He was  _ what? _ ” How  _ Kuron _ was ever a hand sized anything is beyond him.

“Shiro’s right,” nods Kuron. “That’s how we come. Nondescript and colourless. It’s in our design.”

“Your _ design? _ ”

“Yeah. He uh… really didn’t look like much at first. Not that that’s a bad thing!” Shiro adds quickly, glancing at Kuron. “I wasn’t totally sure but the lady at the store kept insisting he’d be good for me. ‘Y _ es, yes, perfect bed companion, highly rated, satisfaction guaranteed!’ _ type of talk. So… I got him. And brought him back. And then…well...” Shiro chews his lip. “I activated him. Without really knowing what I was doing.”

_ “Activated?”  _ This was making less and less sense by the second.

“Like… made him…  _ not _ … a bullet toy. Accidentally.”

“Accidentally.”

“Well… I’m not exactly the best at reading common and most toys are pretty straightforward so…”

Kuron sighs and steps forward, shaking his head as he pushes Shiro aside. “What he’s trying to tell you, what he’s  _ too embarrassed _ to tell you, is that he stuck me up his ass without reading the instruction manual and had the rude surprise of pushing me out before I looked like  _ this _ .” He waves a hand at himself as Shiro shoves his into his face and suppresses something like a scream.

Keith is pretty sure his brain’s just broken. 

“He… he  _ what? _ ”

“He thought I was a normal dildo and shoved me up his-”

“ _ HE GETS IT!” _ Shiro yells, slapping a hand over Kuron’s mouth before he can embarrass anything else that’s going to need a hefty amount of brain bleach. “I… I’ll admit I was stupid, okay? But can we please stop talking about  _ that part _ of all this?”

“You were the one who-”

“I know!” Shiro sucks in a breath like he’s desperate for air. “And you two can laugh about it later but  _ please _ … just… spare me right now.”

One of Kuron’s brows arch. “So I  _ can _ talk about it later?”

“We- we’ll see… just…  _ please _ , never ever mention it to Lance or Pidge when you meet them. I’ll never hear the end of it. Or Matt… or maybe even Hunk… oh god there’s going to be a big list...”

Keith swears he has to be concussed and tied up in a closet now. There’s… there’s no way this is all real. They’re talking about toys and buttholes and Kuron and-

“Long story short,” Shiro coughs, turning back to him still somewhere in the neighbourhood of hot-sauce coloured. “I um… I fucked up when I didn’t read instructions. Kuron… or well,  _ any kuron I guess? _ They uh… they use genetic material as a template when they’re activated. With water… or…  _ any moisture _ it seems. And then…” he slaps his leg, giving the most pained rendition of jazz-hands Keith’s ever seen. “ _ Ta-da. _ ”

Both of them stare at him like two parents desperately waiting for the other to be first to answer the dreaded Santa Claus question they’ve just been faced with and he’s the kid. It’s all weird.  _ Too weird. _

_ Except… _ except it isn’t. Because he swears now. Swears something in this terrible, flaming dumpster fire of an explanation is a shred of something he recognizes. Not how Shiro and Kuron are trying and  _ failing _ to explain all this, but some combination of their words.  _ Genetic material _ .  _ Companion _ . It’s faded and grey in his memory, from the dark time he swore they might have lost Shiro forever… but it’s there. In something he just barely remembers another blade saying to Kolivan. 

Something about Antok and loss and a part of him still living on. He can’t remember much else beyond that, or any mention of  _ kuron _ , but Kolivan’s reaction to it. The sad look and the low voice that followed.  _ ‘It won’t replace him _ ’. It just…  _ fits  _ somehow. 

Ah  _ oh god… _ now he’s thinking of Thulum’s videos… ones the other blade was almost too eager to show him, clips of a famous alien doing all manner of  _ things _ and his avid insurance it wasn’t the real deal, but just as good. That… that was probably… probably a kuron too, wasn’t it?

Keith takes a step back, then another. Enough that his back touches the wall and he just goes with it, sliding down until he’s sitting on the floor and Kosmo runs over to him with a whine. Shiro and Kuron are on his heels in a second. 

“Keith, are you alright?” Shiro’s hand’s on his knee, gently squeezing it. 

“It… it can be a lot,” Kuron soothes, fingers moving hesitantly up to brush his bangs aside and rest on his shoulder. The warmth takes him by surprise. There’s nothing machine-like about them, soft and human as his own. “Shiro didn’t handle it very well at first either. Take your time.”

Keith nods, still staring off into space as the three of them crowd around him. 

In some strange, crack-headed way it all added up. Shiro wouldn’t just  _ buy _ another him, but something nondescript, something an Omega approaching heat was told might be a good fit? He definitely would. Same with how this had all…  _ happened _ . Knowingly… it never would, but if he was clueless? He could see it happening (in far more imaginary detail than he had any right to picture). And after? That was a little more complicated… but… admitting to what had happened? Showing and telling people? Hard to do. And the other route? Finding a way to dispose of the evidence? Keith gnaws at his lip, glancing up and Kuron who’s now rubbing circles into his shoulder, looking both calm and worried as he continues not to move or speak…

Keith… Keith might have an idea of  _ why  _ Shiro couldn’t go down that route. 

Kuron shifts to let Kosmo move in closer to him, great wet nose pressing into his face and neck as he tries to comfort Keith. A quiet bubble of laughter comes from him as Keith pushes Kosmo off from licking his ear, a smile soft like a hazy desert sunrise. 

“It’ll be okay,” he says, helping wrestle Kosmo back to a place where the wolf just has his head pressed into Keith’s chest. “If this is too weird for you, I understand. I’m not… I’m not exactly something for everyone. But if you don’t find it too strange… if you’re okay with me…” he flushes, and Keith suddenly knows what Shiro must have been like before he met him, shy and innocent and new to so much of the universe. “I’d really like it if we could be friends. You mean so much to Shiro and he cares about you and I… I think I’d like to feel something like that too.”

Keith swallows, pulse mounting to a steady thrum in his ears. It wasn’t a bad feeling. Far from it… It was that kind of feeling, the same he got when he first got behind the wheel, when he took his first steps on new soil. Uncharted… new… but not… not unwanted. 

Shiro licks his lips, a hand wrapping gingerly around Kuron’s waist as his other gently squeezes Keith’s knee. 

It’s beyond him, and yet… butterflies are stirring in his stomach, as fresh and new as Kuron.

“Yeah…” he says, fingers sliding up to rest on Shiro’s as he looks up at Kuron. “Yeah, I think I’d like that too.”


End file.
